Riau Islands Provincial Government Asks For Clarity Of Homecoming Conditions For Children Aged 7-17 Years To The Central Government

Illustration for the 2022 Eid homecoming. (Antara)

KEPRI - The Riau Islands Provincial Government (Kepri) has consulted with the central government regarding the clarity of conditions for travelers to go home for Ramadan 2022. Especially for children aged 7-17 years.

The Head of the Riau Islands Provincial Government Health Service, M. Bisri, stated that the regulation was contained in the Circular Letter (SE) of the COVID-19 Handling Task Force Number 16 of 2022 concerning Travel Provisions for Domestic People during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

In the SE, travelers aged 18 years and over are required to have a booster vaccination or an antigen/PCR test if they want to go home. Meanwhile, children aged 6 years and under are excluded, only parental assistance is sufficient upon departure.

"What about travelers aged 7 to 17 years old, whether they have to do an antigen/PCR test or not, while they are not yet required to have a booster vaccine. Now, that's what still confuses us in the region," said Bisri in Tanjungpinang, Monday, April 4, quoted from Antara.

Therefore, Bisri stated that he had asked for an explanation from the central government regarding the SE, considering that currently, his party is also preparing a Circular Letter from the Governor of the Riau Islands Province, as a derivative of the SE Task Force for Handling COVID-19 Number 16 of 2022.

Bisri also hopes that the central government will relax the rules for going home for the community, because the development of COVID-19 in the Riau Islands Province continues to show improvement, and is even optimistic that it will reach the endemic phase in the next five months.

"Hopefully domestic travel restrictions are relaxed, because our goal is how people carry out booster vaccinations, not just the issue of inter-regional antigen test requirements that are emphasized," he said.

Meanwhile, based on data from the Riau Islands Province COVID-19 Task Force, the number of active COVID-19 cases until April 3, 2020 remained as many as 241 people.

For the achievement of the first dose of vaccination 1,744,244 people or 96.76 percent, the second dose of 1,481,944 people 82.21 percent, and the third dose or booster 418,499 people or 30.74 percent.