Deputy Governor of Jakarta Ahmad Riza Patria emphasized that parents should ensure their children get vaccinated against COVID-19 for the sake of their health.

“The officers are ready, and the vaccines are ready. Now, our task as parents is to ensure our children, encourage them, get vaccinated for the sake of their health and safety,” Patria stated at the Jakarta city hall, Wednesday.

The Jakarta provincial government commenced COVID-19 vaccinations for children aged 6-11 years on Tuesday (December 14, 2021).

Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan has targeted as many as 1.1 million children aged 6-11 years in the capital to get vaccinated against COVID-19 at schools or other vaccination locations.

The COVID-19 Handling Task Force remarked that 26.5 million children in the age bracket of six to 11 years were targeted to receive COVID-19 vaccination.

To receive the vaccine, the participants are required to bring along a family card or document that contains the child’s identity number.

Vaccinations for children are part of the government’s efforts to protect them from the deadly virus on account of an increase in the number of COVID-19 cases involving children in several countries that are experiencing community transmission of the Omicron variant.

Earlier, the National Agency of Drug and Food Control (BPOM) had permitted the emergency use of the Sinovac vaccine for children aged 6-11 years.

In a bid to boost immunity against COVID-19, the Indonesian government launched a nationwide vaccination program on January 13, 2021. President Joko Widodo was the first vaccine recipient under the program.

According to data provided by the Health Ministry, as of December 15, 2021, nearly 148,344,215 citizens received their first COVID-19 shot, while 104,522,156 were fully vaccinated against the virus.

Source: Antara News