Government Value Profit Oriented, Member Of Commission XI DPR Pessimistic About Sinovax Vaccine

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JAKARTA - Member of Commission IX of the Indonesian Parliament, Lucy Kurniasari, criticized the handling of COVID-19 in Indonesia which was not optimal even though it had entered one year. According to him, the government seems to prioritize handling the economy rather than health issues.

This can be seen from the appointment of the Chairperson of the COVID-19 Handling Task Force to the Coordinating Minister for the Economy Airlangga Hartanto. Meanwhile, the position of Minister of Health has not been given much role in handling the pandemic.

"The budget allocation for the health sector is also not as big as for the economic sector. This strengthens the government's assessment of subordinating the health approach in handling COVID-19," Lucy told reporters, Thursday, March 4.

"Although it must be admitted, specifically in handling vaccination, the Minister of Health is given the role of only data that the people who will be vaccinated are considered inaccurate," he continued.

The Democrat Party faction member assessed that overall the handling of COVID-19, the minister of health was not given an adequate role in determining the type of vaccine to be used. Surprisingly, he said, the Ministry of State-Owned Enterprises and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have played a major role in purchasing vaccines.

"The most vaccines used are Sinovax products with the lowest effectiveness among other vaccine products. Therefore, there is a concern that national vaccination will not be effective," said Lucy.

Moreover, he added, from the information he received, many health workers who after being vaccinated twice were exposed to COVID-19.

"This makes us a little pessimistic about the results of the Sinovax vaccine," said Lucy.

Lucy added that this concern would be even greater with the entry of the new COVID-19 virus mutation or B117 in Indonesia. He admitted that he was increasingly pessimistic about the effectiveness of the Sinovax vaccine in overcoming the mutation of the COVID-19 virus.

"I hope that handling COVID-19 will not be too profit oriented. That impression must be removed so that people think that the government is serious about handling COVID-19," concluded the East Java legislator.