Riau Islands Governor Considers Face-to-Face Learning If All Students Have Been Vaccinated

Governor of the Riau Islands (Kepri) Ansar Ahmad/ANTARA

TANJUNGPINANG - Governor of Riau Islands (Kepri) Ansar Ahmad said he would consider implementing face-to-face learning (PTM) for SMA/SMK/equivalent if all students had been injected with the vaccine.

Ansar did not deny that currently the number of COVID-19 in the area tends to decrease as a result of the implementation of PPKM. However, his party has no plans to allow PTM to return to schools.

"But we still discuss it first with the education office. If all students have been vaccinated, then PTM can be held, but it is limited to 50 percent," he said in Tanjungpinang, quoted by Antara, Thursday, August 19.

Ansar stated that the achievement of vaccination for children aged 12-17 years, so far is 42.23 percent or 88,110 people from the total target of 227 thousand people.

He said the implementation of the vaccination of the children experienced problems as a result of the limited availability of the Sinovac vaccine.

The Riau Islands Provincial Government continues to urge the central government, through the Ministry of Health, to meet the availability of vaccines for this age group.

"The Sinovac vaccine is limited. That's why we regularly write to the center, because children can't get other vaccines," said Ansar.

The limited availability of vaccines is also faced by people aged 18 years and over, so that the 100 percent target until August 17, 2021 cannot be achieved.

According to him, this was not due to the slow performance of the vaccine interpreter, but indeed the supply of COVID-19 vaccine from the center to the regions was limited.

"Now the vaccination of the general public has reached 71.35 percent of the target of 1.1 million people. We gave up not because of performance problems, but the lack of vaccine stock," said Ansar.