Epidemiologist Asks The Government To Continue To Intensively Monitor Health Protocols Even Though The Number Of COVID-19 Is Decreasing

Illustration/Photo: Antara

JAKARTA - An Epidemiologist Tri Yunis Miko Wahyono asked the government to continue to intensively monitor health protocols as one of the strategies to anticipate the potential increase in cases as people's mobility begins to increase.

"There is a potential increase in cases if health protocols are relaxed, people can be infected more than twice or even more. Monitoring must continue to be intensified", said the epidemiologist from the University of Indonesia when contacted in Jakarta, Tuesday, March 15.

According to him, the easing of community mobility must continue to be accompanied by education and strict supervision of health protocols so that the current case which is starting to fall into a downward trend continues.

He added that health protocols could not be relaxed because the death rate was still relatively high.

With the discipline of health protocols, he continued, it can prevent people from being exposed which can cause death, especially for comorbid groups that have not been fully vaccinated.

"We have to be careful because the number of deaths in Indonesia is still quite high, around 200 people die per day", said Miko, as he is usually called.

Based on data from the COVID-19 Handling Task Force as of March 14, 2022, 271 people died from COVID-19. This brings the total number of deaths from COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic to 152,437 people.

In addition, he also said, the positivity rate or comparison between the number of positive cases of COVID-19 and the number of tests carried out in Indonesia was still quite high, still above the World Health Organization (WHO) standard, which was 5 percent.

As of March 14, 2022, the daily specimen positivity rate is 10.46 percent and the daily person positivity rate is 8.04 percent.

"This means that the spread and transmission are still quite high, he said. Separately, the Spokesperson for COVID-19 Vaccination at the Ministry of Health, Siti Nadia Tarmizi, said that controlling COVID-19 also needs to be supported through efforts to accelerate and expand a complete two-dose vaccination plus a booster.

"This is a defense for us all from treatment with severe symptoms and the risk of death due to COVID-19 infection", said Nadia.

Based on data from the Ministry of Health yesterday March 14, the rate of dose one vaccination has been recorded at 193,591,293 (92.95 percent).

Then the second dose of vaccination has been recorded at 151,693,762 (72.84 percent). Then the booster vaccination record is now at 14,724,644 (7.07 percent).