For Endemic Status, Indonesia Has to Meet Three Conditions: Minister

TheIndonesia.id - Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin has said that his ministry has conceived three conditions that will need to be met for the COVID-19 pandemic to be considered endemic. 

Speaking at a press conference after attending a limited meeting chaired by President Joko Widodo here on Tuesday, he said that the first condition is in accordance with the World Health Organization’s regulation requiring the number of additional confirmed, active, and mortality cases per 100 thousand people to be at Level 1 for three consecutive months.

The second condition is 70 percent coverage for the second dose of the COVID-19 vaccination. "While the third condition requires the transmission rate to reach one or lower than one for three consecutive months," the minister added, Tuesday, May 31, 2022.

Still, considering the global COVID-19 situation, the decision to change the pandemic status to endemic cannot be made by one country alone, the minister said. "There must be an agreement among global leaders," Sadikin added.

President Widodo has called for an increase in the coverage of booster vaccinations. In addition to improving herd immunity, it can help expedite the utilization of vaccine stocks whose expiration date is near. The minister further said that Indonesia will receive 74 million additional vaccines by the end of 2022.

According to a report from the National Disaster Mitigation Agency, the number of confirmed and active COVID-19 cases in Indonesia increased by 340 and 88, respectively, as of 12 p.m. Western Indonesian Standard Time (WIB) on May 31, 2022. Furthermore, 247 additional recoveries and 5 deaths were recorded the same day.

Meanwhile, so far, the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine has been administered to 200,267,408 people, and the second dose has been given to 167,420,810 recipients. In addition, 45,672,972 people have received the third or booster dose. The overall national vaccination target is 208,265,720 people.