No Omicron Cases Yet in Indonesia: Government

TheIndonesia.co - The Indonesian government has confirmed that recent reports about confirmed Omicron cases in Indonesia were false.

Expert staff at the Executive Office of the President, or KSP, Abraham Wirotomo said the information about four Bekasi regency residents contracting the new COVID-19 variant wasn’t true.

“There hasn’t been evidence or statement from me that confirms Omicron [infection] in Bekasi,” Wirotomo said in a statement on Wednesday, December 8, 2021.

“The four patients have undergone quarantine, and contact tracing has also been conducted.”

According to him, based on an investigation by Bekasi regency health office, the four patients contracted the Delta variant and not Omicron as reported.

He regretted the report widely circulated without confirmation from the health office or Ministry of Health. Such ‘hoax’, he said, could result in ‘unnecessary panic’.

Previously, infection cases of the new COVID-19 variant B.1.1.529, or Omicron, were reportedly found in Indonesia. Four Jakartans were said to have contracted the virus after traveling abroad.

Initial reports said the four people were from Bekasi regency, but its head of health office officials denied they’re Bekasi residents. Sri Enny Mainiarti said samples from the four people were examined in Farmalab laboratory in West Cikarang, Bekasi Regency on November 23, but all the patients were from Jakarta.

“We heard information that four people from Bekasi regency tested positive with what’s suspected as Omicron. There were reports that a number of Indonesians and foreigners tested positive, but they have been quarantined in Wisma Atlet,” Mainiarti said on Wednesday.

She added that because the samples were taken to a lab in Cikarang, the new all record (NAR) system owned by the Ministry of Health recorded the patients to be from Bekasi. The office decided to remove the information from the regency’s NAR, but the rumor already circulated in the public.