COVID-19 Cases in Singapore Soar, Soekarno-Hatta Airport Tightens International Arrivals

Officers carry out inspections of international arrival passengers/ Photo: Antara

JAKARTA - Soekarno-Hatta Airport, Tangerang, Banten is tightening supervision on the arrival of foreign or international passengers to anticipate a spike in COVID-19 cases.

Head of the Pelabuha Health Office (KKP) at Soekarno-Hatta Airport, Naning Pranoto, in a written statement, said the surveillance was carried out after a spike in COVID-19 in Singapore which reached 6,000 cases per day.

"The principle is the same, whatever variant of our supervision is because the most important thing is that as long as we carry out health protocols, it will be avoided", he said.

He said that the surveillance process this time was carried out by keeping a thermal scanner at the arrival gate of the international airport.

If later there are passengers from abroad whose body temperature exceeds 37.5 degrees Celsius, they will be immediately advised to do a swab test.

"So the thermal scanner is the vanguard in early detection of passengers who are exposed to COVID-19 or not", he said.

He explained that for passengers who were found to be positive for the Coronavirus, a PCR test would then be carried out by the local health office in coordination with the Indonesian Ministry of Health.

"If we coordinate with the Ministry of Health, Soekarno-Hatta is referred to Jakarta, and after the PCR is positive, we proceed to the examination, to find out what the variant is", he explained.

In detection through the installation of a thermal scanner at the terminal, his party also conducts inspections related to the characteristics or symptoms of passengers.

"If there are passengers who complain of coughing and colds and the temperature is above 37 degrees Celsius, the officers will observe further", he said.