Jakarta Warned of Omicron Subvariants After Cases Identified in Bali

TheIndonesia.id - Member of Jakarta Regional Representative Council (DPRD Jakarta) has warned the province of a potential new COVID-19 wave in the province following confirmation of Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 cases in Bali.

Politician Hardiyanto Kenneth said local authorities must immediately prepare a proper response to the recent surge of cases in Jakarta, especially since Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 can also pose a great threat to the COVID-19 handling effort.

“[Next step must be prepared] considering there have been hundreds of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Jakarta [in the last days],” Kenneth said on Sunday, June 12, as reported by Antara.

The daily confirmed cases in the province on June 7-9 were 260, 288, and 276, respectively, and they rose to 333 and 314 on June 10 and 11. The figures were deemed worrying as Jakarta continues to report the highest number of cases in Indonesia.

Therefore, Kenneth asked Jakarta authorities to be responsive of the recent development as social restrictions in the province have been gradually eased to prepare the public to return to normality.

“Currently, everything has returned to normal with students fully continuing with in-person learning and workers returning to the office. Now, the public also often remove their masks when interacting with each other,” the politician said.

Furthermore, Jakarta should also be aware of the spread of BA.4 and BA.5 as the subvariants have been triggering new case surge in many countries.

“[They] should be seriously watched out, and we shouldn’t underestimate BA.4 and BA.5 because they have the ability to re-infect and are much stronger compared to BA.1 and BA.2,” Kenneth warned.

Previously, the Ministry of Health confirmed that four cases of COVID-19 Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 were identified in Bali.

“There have been variants under monitoring (VUM), such as Omicron BA.4 and BA.5, which cause case surge in Europe, America, and Asia. And they have been found in four people in Bali,” Minister of Health Budi Gunadi Sadikin said on June 10.

He also confirmed the BA.4 and BA.5 cases were detected in Bali in May, and the result of genome sequencing was received by the Ministry of Health on June 9.