Children's COVID-19 Transmission Goes Crazy, PSI Asks Anies To Ban Children From Entering Public Places

Chairman of the PSI faction of the DKI DPRD Idris Ahmad (Photo: DOK psi.id)

JAKARTA - Chairman of the PSI faction of the DKI DPRD Idris Ahmad asked the Governor of DKI Jakarta to make a policy that prohibits children from entering public places. This is due to an increase in the transmission of COVID-19 to children in the capital city.

According to Idris, the government must protect children's right to life. With the COVID-19 situation in Jakarta currently in the red zone or a high risk area for COVID-19, the movement of children must be limited.

"Children have not been able to take responsibility and protect themselves. Therefore, we ask the DKI Provincial Government to issue a policy to prohibit children from entering public places that have the potential for mass crowds and the risk of infection, such as tourist attractions, restaurants and shopping centers," said Idris. in his statement, Saturday, June 26.

Idris considers that limiting children's mobility in public spaces is an effort to suppress the addition of COVID-19 cases in children.

Moreover, special health facilities for children are still limited. Not all hospitals have PICU and NICU facilities for children and currently, there are only 21 PICU beds and 20 NICU beds in Jakarta.

"Children are becoming more and more vulnerable so it must be a priority to get protection," said Idris.

As is known, the level of exposure to COVID-19 in children is much higher than before. As in the addition of new cases on Sunday, June 20, as many as 665 cases were children aged 5 to 18 years and 224 cases were children under five years.

Then, of the 7,505 new cases in DKI on Thursday, June 24, 15 percent of today's new cases were transmitted to children under the age of 18.

Clearly, as many as 830 cases were children aged 6-18 years and 282 cases were children aged 0-5 years. Meanwhile, 5,775 cases were aged 19-59 years and 618 cases were aged 60 years and over.

Then, as of today, DKI recorded 9,271 cases from 30,549 specimen examinations. The bad news is that 14 percent of today's new cases are in children under the age of 18.

In detail, as many as 332 cases were children aged 0-5 years, 993 cases were children aged 6-18 years. Meanwhile, 7,218 new cases today are residents aged 19-59 years and 728 cases are elderly or aged 60 years and over.

Seeing this, DKI Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan considers the current state of the COVID-19 pandemic to be different from last year. In which, various new virus variants have emerged, namely the Alpha variant from the UK, the Beta variant from South Africa, to the Delta variant from India.

"This means that we are facing a different epidemic situation from the beginning of last year. It is most likely a new variant that is easily transmitted including to children," said Anies, some time ago.