When is COVID-19 Vaccination Possible To Do Independently? This Is The Response Of The COVID-19 Task Force

ILLUSTRATION / BETWEEN

JAKARTA - Spokesperson for the Task Force (Task Force) Handling COVID-19 Wiku Adisasmito spoke up about the discourse on COVID-19 vaccination independently.

Wiku said that all parties must work together to make the COVID-19 vaccination program in the country a success by carrying out the vaccination stages as determined by the government.

Meanwhile, regarding the independent COVID-19 vaccination program, Wiku did not explicitly answer. Although he appreciated the input on independent vaccines, he reminded the public that they must get vaccines that have official licenses from the government.

"Please cooperate with each other in the success of the vaccination program, including carrying out the vaccination stage under official government permission", he said in a press conference broadcast on the Presidential Secretariat YouTube account, Tuesday, February 9.

This vaccination, said Wiku, must be carried out by the community according to the criteria. At least 70 percent of the population must be injected with vaccines to achieve community immunity against this pandemic.

"So, community immunity, which is our goal at the moment, is at least 70 percent of the public being vaccinated. So that in the end all people who meet the vaccine criteria will be vaccinated and what is different is only the giving of time", he said.

"In principle, the government prioritizes vaccines to those who are at risk in stages according to medical ethics", added Wiku.

As previously reported, 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 officers, 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.

Regarding the provision of vaccines to health workers, as of Friday, February 5 yesterday, out of a total target of 1.4 people, the government has currently carried out stage one vaccinations for 744,884 people. Meanwhile, health workers who have received the second phase of vaccination reached 120,725 people.