COVID-19 Improves A Week Before Eid, Airlangga Calls On The Community To Maintain Health Protocol

JAKARTA - Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs, Airlangga Hartarto, said that the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia is showing signs of continuing to improve.

According to him, based on several indications, the pandemic conditions were quite under control in the last week of the month of Ramadan or a week before Eid Al-Fitr 1443 Hijrah.

Airlangga appealed to the entire community to maintain the health procedures while enjoying the 2022 Eid holiday so that COVID-19 remains under control.

"Indonesia's Effective Case Reproductive Rate (Rt) continues to improve in all islands, which is 0.99 or below 1.00, which means the transmission rate is under control", said Coordinating Minister Airlangga in a statement, Tuesday, April 26.

The chairman of the Committee for Handling COVID-19 and National Economic Recovery (KPCPEN) added that the government continued to extend the Implementation of Community Activity Restrictions (PPKM) as a strategy to control the rate of transmission of COVID-19 systematically. The government does not want the public to be careless during the Eid Al-Fitr holiday, which will result in cases rising again post-Eid.

The public is advised to maintain discipline in health protocols, and increase the achievement of the third or booster dose of vaccination. Airlangga said the national daily cases recorded only 382 cases on Sunday, April 24.

This number is down 99.4 percent from the highest number on February 16, which recorded an addition of 64,718 cases in one day.

Meanwhile, national active cases are now only 17,631, down 96.99 percent from its peak on February 24, 2022, at 586,113 cases.

Airlangga said, daily cases outside Java-Bali consistently show a downward trend, with only 80 cases added as of April 24, 2022. Meanwhile, there are 3,880 active cases outside Java-Bali.

“Nevertheless, active cases in Lampung and West Sumatra are relatively higher than in other areas, although there is also a downward trend in cases. The highest active cases are in Lampung Province with 964 cases", said Coordinating Minister Airlangga.

Airlangga, who is also the General Chair of the Golkar Party, emphasized that the rate of vaccination achievement is also encouraging news. Government policy stipulates booster vaccination as a condition for going home to be able to boost vaccination achievements.

According to the Chairman of Golkar, there are only two provinces where the Dose-1 vaccination is still below 70 percent, namely, Papua and West Papua.

“There are already 22 provinces that have achieved more than 70 percent of Dose-2 vaccination. Meanwhile, there are 25 provinces where the dose-3 or booster vaccination is above 10 percent, with 18 provinces located outside Java-Bali", said Coordinating Minister Airlangga.