Jokowi Targets 1 Million Vaccinations Per Day, Ministry Of Health: Very Difficult, But We Are Trying To

President Joko Widodo (Photo: Cabinet Secretariat of the Republic of Indonesia)

JAKARTA - President Jokowi is targeting people who undergo COVID-19 vaccination to reach 1 million people per day. However, until now this target has not been met.

Vaccination spokesman from the Ministry of Health, Siti Nadia Tarmizi, admitted that this target is difficult to achieve at this time.

"The average (number of vaccination recipients) is very difficult, because at the beginning we were only 1,000 (doses), 5 thousand, then 10 thousand. But we continue to increase this to 400 thousand per day", said Nadia in a virtual discussion, Tuesday, 23 March.

Nadia explained, there are several factors that hinder the achievement of the vaccination target of 1 million doses per day. Even though health service facilities are scattered in various regions, the capacity for injecting and the number of vaccinators is still limited.

Shee said the capacity of each health center was 50-150 at most in providing injection doses per day. Then, the capacity of the hospital is also only able to inject 300 to 500 vaccines per day.

Moreover, vaccination administrators must also pay attention to the implementation of health protocols. Do not let the queue of residents who are about to be vaccinated build up, causing a crowd.

"Even though we have a large enough health care facility, we will not be able to catch up to the speed of one million doses per day. This is because there are health protocols that we must maintain", said Nadia.

Therefore, the government is currently opening mass vaccination centers in one location to accelerate the pursuit of the target of 1 million vaccination doses per day.

"The existence of this joint vaccination center, this is what we must also raise in various regions, especially in cities with large and concentrated populations. This joint vaccination will greatly accelerate the vaccination process", she said.

However, this also depends on the availability of existing vaccine doses. "We will calculate according to the availability of vaccines. When there are sufficient vaccines available, the vaccination trend will reach 1 million doses per day", she concluded.