Erick Thohir: Thanks To Vaccination, The Number Of COVID-19 Transmission Among Medical Personnel Has Decreased

Minister of BUMN, Erick Thohir. (Photo: Setkab)

JAKARTA - Indonesia has carried out a COVID-19 vaccination program. In the first phase, Sinovac's COVID-19 vaccine injection was given to health workers throughout Indonesia. State-Owned Corporation (BUMN) Minister Erick Thohir claimed that the level of transmission experienced by medical personnel has decreased dramatically after the COVID-19 vaccination.

"The report from the field yesterday when we had a meeting chaired by the Coordinating Minister for the Economy that after the medical personnel was injected, the transmission could be an average of 200 in a province or place, after the third week it dropped to just 24, This is a very drastic decrease", he said, at the launching of the BUMN Plasma program for Indonesia, Monday, February 8.

However, Erick underlined that the death rate due to COVID-19 in Indonesia is still worrying. Therefore, the government continues to promote preventive and curative measures. One of them is by accelerating the implementation of vaccination in the regions.

"If we see for ourselves, the mortality rate is still very high because of that, several initiatives are being carried out by the government, one of which is vaccination, which is now starting for health workers", he said.

Previously, the Governor of Central Java Ganjar Pranowo also revealed a similar thing. Ganjar said, three weeks after the implementation of the vaccination program carried out by the Central Java regional government (Pemda), the number of health workers who were exposed to COVID-19 only touched 27 people. That number has decreased significantly.

Based on the records of the Central Java Regional Government, during the last seven weeks before the Sinovac vaccine was distributed by the BUMN Pharmacy Holding, PT Bio Farma (Persero), the number of positive cases of COVID-19 for medical personnel was 200 people. However, that number slowly fell as vaccinations were carried out.

"I would like to convey that the results of our records, in the last seven weeks before the vaccine was carried out, there was 200 medical personnel who were exposed to COVID-19 on average. Once vaccinated, there was a drastic drop of 170, 140, even after third weeks that's only 27", said Ganjar, Sunday, February 7.

If the program to prevent the spread of the virus is accompanied by strict implementation of health protocols, said Ganjar, the handling of the pandemic will move to the recovery stage more quickly.

"If we want to be a little disciplined, the economy will probably recover more quickly, so there is hope for vaccines. Where people didn't believe it at first, this would solve the problem", he said.

For your information, based on data from the Ministry of Health, the total cumulative cases totaled 1,157,837 people since the first case was announced on March 2. Meanwhile, new positive cases as of February 7 were 10,287 people.

Meanwhile, the confirmed positive Covid-19 cases who died increased by 163 people and the total to be 31,556 people. And 10,806 people recovered, for a total of 949,990 people recovered.