Some 81 percent of the COVID-19 cases in Indonesia were of the Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5, Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin stated.
“I explain that 81 percent of all cases in Indonesia are of BA.4 and BA.5, so it is not only in Jakarta. Jakarta has 100 percent (cases of) BA.4 and BA.5,” Sadikin noted at the Jakarta Presidential Office, Monday.
Sadikin conveyed the statement at a press conference after attending a limited meeting with the agenda of evaluating the implementation of community activity restrictions (PPKM).
“We see that the (number of) cases is still under control. The message to the public is the same, i.e., the policy of wearing masks indoors. Someone who is sick should use mask. People should use masks in crowded places. (The administration of) booster vaccination should be accelerated. God willing, that is a sufficient response to welcome Eid al-Adha normally,” Sadikin stated.
The government had found one case of the BA.4 subvariant and three cases of the BA.5 subvariant on June 6, 2022.
According to the report, BA.4 and BA.5 had a likelihood of spreading faster than the Omicron BA.1 and BA.2 subvariants.
Meanwhile, judging from the severity of BA.4 and BA.5, there is no indication of causing more severe pain than the other Omicron variants.
Three countries — South Africa, Portugal, and Chile — that have recorded an increase in COVID-19 cases are associated with an increase in BA.4 and BA.5 cases.
Meanwhile, in Indonesia, with the surfacing of BA.4 and BA.5 cases in early June 2022, the peak spread of cases is estimated to occur in early July of 2022.
Based on data from the COVID-19 Task Force as of July 3, 2022, the total number of confirmed positive cases in Indonesia had increased by 1,614, thereby bringing the total number of cases to 6,093,917. Meanwhile, the number of active cases of COVID-19 in Indonesia reached 16,919.
The number of recoveries also increased by 1,606, thereby bringing the total to 5,920,249 cases, while the number of those succumbing to the disease increased by four to reach a total of 156,749 since the COVID-19 pandemic hit Indonesia in March 2020.
With regard to the vaccinations conducted, the government administered the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine in Indonesia, with a total of 201,565,306 doses, the second-dose vaccination reaching 169,117,557 doses, and the 3rd-dose vaccination having reached 50,916,428 doses.
This means that the administration of booster vaccination had only reached 24.5 percent of the total vaccination target.
Source: Antara News