Vice President Ma’ruf Amin has reminded the public that all parties still need to put in all-out efforts to help the country achieve herd immunity against COVID-19.

“As of October 3, 2021, under the national vaccination program, 45.03 percent of the population had been administered the first dose, while 25.29 percent had taken the second dose. Hence, hard work is still required to achieve herd immunity, which is 70-percent (population) vaccination coverage for the first and second dose,” Amin noted during an online seminar here, Wednesday.

According to the daily record of the Health Ministry, Amin remarked that under the national vaccination program, some 1.4 million vaccine doses on average per day were administered. In keeping with that pace, Indonesia will require seven months to achieve herd immunity, or having vaccinated at least 208.5 million people.

“It is estimated to still take seven months from now or around mid-2022 to reach 70-percent (vaccination) coverage,” he stated.

If the country is targeting to achieve herd immunity by the end of December 2021, all parties should expedite the administration of COVID-19 vaccines, he stated.

“If we want the vaccinations to be completed by the end of 2021, the pace of vaccination should be increased to 2.5 million vaccine doses inoculated per day,” he remarked.

Hence, Vice President Amin has called on all ranks of the Indonesian Military (TNI) and National Police (Polri) to ramp up efforts to accelerate COVID-19 vaccination in regions where the vaccination achievement was still low.

In a bid to boost immunity against COVID-19, the Indonesian government has launched a nationwide vaccination program on January 13, 2021. According to data from the Health Ministry, as of October 6, 2021, as many as 95,781,773 citizens have received their first COVID-19 vaccine dose, and 54,441,979 Indonesians have been fully vaccinated.

Source: Antara News