Member of Commission IX of the Indonesian House of Representatives, Nurhadi reminded the Government to anticipate the emergence of the new COVID-19 Cicada variant without making the public panic. He emphasized that the government should not be late in reading the early signals that triggered concerns about the spread of the virus to the potential of more severe symptoms.
"The emergence of the new COVID-19 variant BA.3.2 or known as 'Cicada' should not be treated with panic, but should be a reminder that the national health system must remain alert and adaptive even though we have entered the post-pandemic phase," Nurhadi told reporters, Wednesday, April 8.
"We assess that the Government needs to prepare cross-sector scenarios early. Do not let the delay in reading the early signals lead to greater health, social, and economic impacts," he continued.
Although the Ministry of Health said that until now Indonesia has not recorded any cases of the Cicada COVID-19 variant, Nurhadi urged the government to take effective steps to prevent the spread of the virus.
"The fact that this variant has not been detected in Indonesia does indeed give a quiet space, but global dynamics show that the spread of the virus is still difficult to predict, especially in the midst of high international mobility," said Nurhadi.
Nurhadi stated that Commission IX of the DPR highlighted not only whether this variant had entered Indonesia or not, but rather the issue of early detection capacity. "Is our early detection strong enough to read changes from the beginning," he said.
The NasDem legislator from the East Java VI District then reminded the experience of the last pandemic which taught that the gap between global detection and the entry of variants into a country is often very short, while policy responses are often lagging behind.
"We encourage the Government to strengthen genomic surveillance evenly, not only centered in big cities. Public communication must also be kept clear, not to cause panic but also not to underestimate the risk," he concluded.
For information, the Cicada COVID-19 variant is currently in the category of variants under global monitoring and is known to have a high number of mutations in the spike protein. This variant has been found in at least 25 countries and attacks many children.
A number of international reports say that COVID-19 Cicada has the potential to increase the ability to re-infect even though there is no strong evidence that the severity is higher than the Omicron subvariant. Children are considered more vulnerable because they have not been vaccinated against COVID-19 so they have no immunity or immunity against the virus.
The English, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and French versions are automatically generated by the AI. So there may still be inaccuracies in translating, please always see Indonesian as our main language. (system supported by DigitalSiber.id)
