Good News, Acceleration Of The COVID-19 Vaccine Reaches 27 Million Vaccinations

Minister of Health, Budi Gunadi Sadikin, while giving a statement with the Minister of SOEs Erick Thohir and the Chair of the Covid-19 Handling Task Force (Photo: YouTube Screenshot of the Presidential Secretariat)

JAKARTA - The Indonesian government's efforts to maintain and supply the COVID-19 vaccine until Monday, May 31 have resulted in great news. This vaccination will reach 27 million vaccinations. With daily vaccination 500 thousand vaccinations per day.

"Thank God, this month we have around 20 million in stock. So if we divide it by 30 days, we are able to inject 500-650 thousand injections per day", said Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin who gave a statement with SOE Minister Erick Thohir and Head of the COVID-19 Handling Task Force Ganip Warsito at the Presidential Office, Jakarta, quoted from Presidential Secretariat's YouTube channel on Monday, May 31.

Budi gave a statement after attending a limited meeting chaired by President Jokowi. "Now there has been an increase in cases of over 100.000. The President asked when the trend of increasing cases after the Eid holiday reached its peak? Based on empirical experience after the holidays, positive cases would peak in 5-7 weeks", he said.

With this condition, Budi asked all regional heads to immediately accelerate the vaccination program in their respective regions. In addition, the priority of giving vaccines to the elderly must also be carried out.

According to him, learning from areas that experienced a fairly high increase in cases such as Kudus Regency in Central Java Province and in South Sumatra Province, many elderly groups were exposed to COVID-19 and had a greater risk of death.

"If we can prioritize vaccination for the elderly, God willing, the number of people entering the hospital will be much reduced, God willing, there will be a lot fewer deaths", he said.

In addition, the mass vaccination program that has been carried out for health workers since the beginning of the program has proven to be able to reduce the risk of death, which was once a problem for health workers in their struggle to deal with the pandemic at the forefront. In Kudus Regency, which is currently experiencing a spike in cases, it is known that 140 health workers have been exposed to COVID-19, but most of them are asymptomatic.

"Hopefully those affected will recover faster because the antibodies have already been formed. My appeal to the public, please help these health workers who have sacrificed for all of us by remaining disciplined in wearing masks. If we are disciplined, the risk will be greatly reduced", said the Minister of Health.