COVID-19 Vaccination Certificate Becomes A Condition For Current Travel Players, Is It Important?

Illustration (Pixabay)

JAKARTA - Spokesman for the Task Force Handling COVID-19 Wiku Adisasmito said the use of a COVID-19 vaccine certificate as a requirement for travelers is still being studied. This is at the same time responding to the statement of the Minister of Health, Budi Gunadi Sadikin, who said that this is very possible to apply.

Through an online press conference broadcast on the Presidential Secretariat YouTube account, Wiku explained that the use of this certificate was still a discourse because it needed further study.

"Until now, this is still a discourse", said Wiku, Thursday, March 18.

This study, he continued, must be done because until now the effectiveness of vaccines to create individual immunity for recipients is still being studied.

"If the certification is issued without a study proving that individual immunity has been created, then the certificate holder (still, red) has the potential to contract or transmit the COVID-19 virus while traveling", he said.

This discourse was originally conveyed by Minister of Health Budi Gunadi Sadikin in a joint meeting with Commission IX of the Indonesian Parliament. Although it could be declared, however, he did not deny that this was still a matter of debate among epidemiologists.

He said epidemiologists had even suggested that this condition should not be announced at this time but later, when people who received the COVID-19 vaccine had reached 30-40 percent of the total population.

"I honestly said this at the beginning when I first became Minister of Health. But it sparked debate among epidemiologists. I talked to them and they said that even though they were vaccinated, there was no guarantee that he could not be infected and could not transmit it", said Budi at that time.

Is it important for these rules to be made?

Epidemiologist from Australia's Griffith University, Dicky Budiman said, the use of a COVID-19 vaccine certificate as a requirement for travelers can indeed be made. But, he assessed, this is not necessary at this time considering that the provision of vaccines in the community is still not very massive.

"Only less than two percent of Indonesia's population has been vaccinated", said Dicky when contacted by VOI.

If indeed this rule is being enforced at this time, he is worried, this will actually lead to discrimination in the community. "Unless there is more than 30-40 percent (vaccination, ed), that is the basis", he said.

"But if it is still two percent less, we will become an unfair country and the principle of equality is not achieved", he added.

Moreover, he considered, this vaccination certificate should not invalidate the importance of including a COVID-19 free letter for travelers.

According to him, testing for COVID-19 should be important, especially for those who travel frequently. Moreover, the COVID-19 virus can mutate to become more infectious.

Moreover, this method has not been recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), although there are several European countries that have started implementing the inclusion of vaccine certificates complementing COVID-19 free letters.

So, he said, the use of a vaccine certificate as a requirement for travelers does not need to be implemented in the near future. "There are many minuses if this is implemented now, because not many have been vaccinated", he said.

"Apart from that, there will be a false sense of security that must be straightened out. Because those who are vaccinated can still have the potential to be exposed and spread the virus, especially if they do not comply with health protocols, "he concluded.