Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin urged all parties to brace for a possible spike in COVID-19 cases expected to occur in the upcoming weeks.
“We have monitored the (number of COVID-19) cases daily, and I believe that the surge in cases will peak in the upcoming one or two weeks,” Sadikin stated here, Friday.
The government is constantly monitoring the number of daily COVID-19 cases and all of its indicators to observe any trends in fluctuations in the number of cases, he remarked.
The minister noted that since the XBB and BQ1 variants of COVID-19 had been detected in Indonesia, the trend of cases was increasing, particularly as the recent daily positive cases had reached eight thousand.
The emergence of new variants might cause the daily cases of COVID-19 to rise to 10 thousand to 15 thousand, yet with a lower bed occupancy rate as compared with other COVID-19 variants, he noted.
Sadikin said that to identify the antibody titer in the population, the authority collaborated with the University of Indonesia’s Faculty of Public Health to conduct a mass serosurvey every six months.
The serosurvey report would allow the government to understand the decline of population antibodies and detect regions where booster vaccine administration needs to be intensified, he stated.
“We have the data, by name and by address, of the 205 million of our population, and (the serosurvey) allows us to predict which regions require intensification of the booster vaccine program,” the minister remarked.
The high antibody levels detected among members of the population and daily cases lower than the government forecast should not make residents complacent, he emphasized while adding that residents must get their booster vaccine dose promptly to reduce possible surge in COVID-19 cases.
“If we could control (the surge in cases), Indonesia will become one of the countries that did not experience any surge in cases in 12 months,” Sadikin remarked.
Source: Antara News