Deputy Governor of Jakarta Ahmad Riza Patria reminded the public to be more alert to the likelihood of COVID-19 transmission during the year-end holidays.

“In the past two years, every holiday has always been followed by an increase in COVID-19 daily cases,” Patria stated at the Jakarta City Hall on Wednesday.

Patria appealed to the public to continue to implement strict health protocols and reduce mobility outside.

The Jakarta government also supports the central government’s plan to implement level three of Community Mobility Restrictions (PPKM) throughout Indonesia, from December 24, 2021, to January 2, 2022.

The increase in PPKM level aims to limit crowd-drawing community activities that can increase the likelihood of COVID-19 transmission.

“We respect and laud the central government’s plan and will support the imposition of the third level PPKM policy at the end of the year,” Patria noted.

He also expressed optimism that community activities that had been relaxed so far will readjust to the PPKM level three provisions by the end of the year.

“Hopefully, the community members would be able to adjust their relaxed activities to the existing rules and regulations. We hope there will be no third wave of COVID-19 after the year-end holidays,” he stated.

Currently, PPKM in Jakarta has been set at level one, with the capacity of community activities being relaxed by 75 to 100 percent.

During the past week on November 15-21, the Jakarta Government had recorded the number of positive COVID-19 cases to reach 657, or 0.6 percent out of the total of 102,195 Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) swab tests.

Meanwhile, the isolation bed occupancy at 140 COVID-19 referral hospitals until November 21, 2021, had reached four percent of the total 4,256 beds or 185 beds.

The occupancy at the Incentive Care Unit (ICU) reached 42 beds or six percent of the total 675 beds.

Source: Antara News