National Police Chief, General Listyo Sigit Prabowo reminded the regional governments of two mandatory requirements — 70-percent vaccination rate for general public and 60 percent for elderly — to implement the full face-to-face learning method.
Both conditions must be met in order to fulfill the government’s policy regarding face-to-face learning for children.
“The current government has imposed a 100-percent face-to-face learning policy to implement 100-percent face-to-face learning and vaccinate children, for which the target of 70-percent vaccination rate for the general public and 60-percent rate (for vaccination) for elderly must be met,” Prabowo noted in Bandung, West Java, on Friday, as quoted from a press release from the National Police Public Relations Division.
Prabowo remarked that the face-to-face learning method was important, given that everyone had been missing out on it for two years owing to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The National Police chief claimed that for implementing 100 percent face-to-face learning, there must be guarantees, in the form of health and immunity, for children to be protected from the dangers of the coronavirus. He believes such guarantees can be realized through ways, such as by administering vaccinations.
Prabowo believes that reinforcing children immunity offers a guarantee of health for parents and people in their environment in order to address all concerns when 100-percent face-to-face learning was implemented.
He believed that the immunity developed as a result could create a safer school environment, so the children do not become virus carriers upon returning home.
Apart from increasing immunity, vaccination could prevent or reduce fatalities from the dangers of the virus’ variants, such as Delta and Omicron, Prabowo remarked.
“This is because (based on) the examination of people, who have been vaccinated (and later contracted) the new variant, the symptoms they showed are generally asymptomatic or mild symptoms. This means the vaccine really provides protection to the community against attacks by existing variants, either Delta or Omicron,” he stated.
He stressed that vaccination could also maintain the positive trend of restraining COVID-19 transmission in Indonesia, as is currently occurring.
For 167 days, Indonesia managed to suppress the number of COVID-19 cases, thereby maintaining the positivity rate below one. Moreover, the bed occupancy rate was also under control, pegged at three. He cited the success to the contribution from all involved parties.
Prabowo noted that thwarting the transmission of COVID-19 would serve as an important basis to conduct community activities. It would prepare Indonesia to face and host national and international events. All these efforts will impact Indonesia’s economic growth, which continues to improve amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The national police chief urged people to continue to follow health protocols despite having received vaccination. He cited other countries as an example, as they had experienced an increase in COVID-19 cases when their adherence to health protocols declined.
Source: Antara News