Vaccination For COVID-19, Jokowi: Many Requests To Be Done Independently

President Joko Widodo (Photo: ANTARA)

JAKARTA - President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) stated that the government is still reviewing the mechanism for implementing the COVID-19 vaccination independently in an effort to accelerate the achievement of communal immunity.

"Many of the companies, the entrepreneurs said, 'Sir, can we not vaccinate independently?' This is what we have just decided, "the President said via a video teleconference at the State Palace as reported by Antara, Thursday, January 21.

"Because of what? We need to accelerate, need as much as possible, moreover the costs are borne by the company itself, why not?" said the President through

The President stated that the independent COVID-19 vaccination mechanism must be well prepared.

"But once again, we have to manage this issue well, maybe it can be given as long as the vaccine brands are different, for different places for vaccines it can be done," he said.

The government has started implementing the COVID-19 vaccination. The President said that the government was trying to accelerate the implementation of vaccinations to control transmission of the corona virus.

"How can it be accelerated? How can we do it as much as possible in the fastest possible time because we have the power of approximately 30 thousand vaccinators, there are approximately 10 thousand health centers, there are approximately three thousand hospitals that we can operate," he said.

He said, if one vaccination officer can vaccinate 30 people every day then in a day nearly one million people can be vaccinated.

"This is a huge number. This is our strength here. Other countries do not have health centers, but we do, which every year also immunizes our children," he said.

"This is why I have said that there is actually no one year vaccination we should be able to complete because we can calculate the numbers," said the President.

The government plans to vaccinate 181.5 million people to achieve communal immunity against COVID-19.

The first batch of vaccinations will be carried out from January to April 2021 with the target of 1.3 million health workers in 34 provinces, 17.4 million public officials, and 21.5 million elderly citizens.

The second batch of vaccinations will be carried out from April 2021 to March 2022 with a target of 63.9 million people in areas with high transmission risk and 77.4 million other community members using a cluster approach according to the availability of vaccines.

The government has confirmed orders for 329.5 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine from several vaccine manufacturers, including the Chinese pharmaceutical company, Sinovac; US-Canadian vaccine manufacturer Novavax; British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca; and the German and US pharmaceutical company Pfizer BioNTech