Day: February 1, 2022

All parties should move jointly in implementing prevention efforts to suppress the current uptick in COVID-19 cases, People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) Deputy Speaker Lestari Moerdijat has said.

“In facing the spike in COVID-19 cases, all parties should move jointly to make prevention efforts. No one should ever ignore or even implement policies that are contrary to the prevention efforts,” Moerdijat said in a written statement released on Tuesday.

She issued the statement in response to the increasing number of COVID-19 cases in Indonesia based on data from the COVID-19 Task Force.

According to the task force’s data, on Sunday (January 30, 2022), Indonesia recorded 12,422 new COVID-19 cases, while the number of additional infections was 7,010 on Wednesday (January 26), she noted.

Amid the rapid increase in cases, the regulations that are implemented must strengthen prevention efforts, she stressed.

Stakeholders at the central and regional levels must collaborate well for enforcing each regulation so that the COVID-19 spread in the country can be controlled, the MPR deputy speaker said.

According to Moerdijat, support from the community is essential, especially compliance with the health protocols, for facing the increasing COVID-19 transmission.

She emphasized families’ vital role in improving compliance with protocols, including wearing masks, washing hands, and avoiding crowds.

“Even the Indonesian Medical Association (IDI) has recommended that people wear N95 masks while implementing the health protocols so that new COVID-19 cases in Indonesia will not continue to increase,” she said.

Moerdijat also urged the community to complete their vaccination doses and appealed to those eligible for booster vaccinations to get them immediately.

The first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in Indonesia in March 2020. According to data provided by the COVID-19 Handling Task Force, as of January 31, 2022, at least 4,353,370 people have tested positive for COVID-19 in the country, while 4,140,454 people have recovered and 144,320 people have succumbed to the virus.

Source: Antara News

Jakarta province clocked the highest daily COVID-19 cases in Indonesia on Tuesday at 6,391, according to the COVID-19 Task Force.

As of 12 p.m. local time on Tuesday, West Java had recorded 4,249 cases, Banten 2,463 cases, East Java 760 cases, and Bali 715 cases, according to data provided by the COVID-19 Task Force.

These additions took the national tally of daily COVID-19 cases to 16,021, bringing the total number of positive cases since March 2020 to 4,369,391, the task force said.

Of the 16,021 daily cases of COVID-19, 15,485 patients contracted the virus via local transmission and 536 had a history of overseas travel, it added.

The highest recoveries were recorded in Jakarta at 1,668, followed by West Java (869), East Java (292), Banten (253), and Central Java (47).

On the national scale, the daily recovery rate increased by 3,240, bringing the total to 4,143,694 since the beginning of the pandemic.

Jakarta also recorded the most deaths at 12, followed by West Java (4), Central Java and Bali (3 each), and Lampung (2).

The national death tally stood at 28 on Tuesday, thus bringing the total toll to 144,348.

Currently, Indonesia has 12,753 active COVID-19 patients, or patients who are still undergoing treatment and self-isolation, the task force informed. The total figure for active cases has reached 81,349 so far, it added.

Meanwhile, 12,121 people are suspected to have contracted the infections based on 377,588 specimens tested in laboratory networks throughout Indonesia.

According to spokesperson for the Health Ministry, Siti Nadia Tarmizi, as of Monday (January 31, 2022), the total number of patients infected with the Omicron variant had reached 2,980, comprising 1,039 local transmission cases and 1,601 imported cases.

As many as 340 cases were still under epidemiological investigation to determine the history of transmission, she informed.

The ministry reported that so far, there have been five deaths caused by the Omicron variant. As many as 60 percent of patients who died had not received complete doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, and as many as 63 percent experienced moderate to severe symptoms and required oxygen assistance, it said.

Source: Antara News

The government of Bekasi district, West Java, has said it is planning to evaluate the implementation of face-to-face or offline learning in response to dozens of students testing positive for COVID-19.

“We will discuss the continuation of face-to-face learning in each school as part of the evaluation. From the reports we received, 45 students have tested positive for COVID-19, not including the two students of South Tambun 6 State Senior High School,” spokesperson for the Bekasi district COVID-19 Task Force Alamsyah said here on Tuesday.

The students were most likely exposed to the virus outside school and not when they participated in face-to-face learning, he added.

“They got infected outside of school. Thus, (they got infected) when they were doing activities outside with their parents or other activities, not during face-to-face learning,” he remarked.

The spokesperson confirmed that he had scheduled a coordination meeting with officials to anticipate a spike in COVID-19 cases in the district.

He deemed that fast handling is necessary to determine the status of public activity restrictions (PPKM) in Bekasi district, which is currently still at Level 2.

Regions implementing Level 2 PPKM are still allowed to implement limited face-to-face learning in schools, he noted.

“Based on the Joint Decree of the four ministers, it is still possible to implement face-to-face learning in regions with Level 2 PPKM. Until today, there has been no policy to close schools. Later, we will have a meeting with the Central Task Force regarding the level; then, we will evaluate face-to-face learning,” he informed.

He asserted that the task force is currently intensifying tracing, testing, and treatment efforts in schools that have recorded COVID-19 infections.

“If there are cases like this, we will conduct contact tracing, then conduct testing massively in order to minimize COVID-19 transmission at schools during face-to-face learning,” he affirmed.

Source: Antara News

U.S.-based drugmaker Pfizer and its German-based partner BioNTech is expected to ask the Food and Drug Administration Tuesday to grant authorization of its COVID-19 vaccine for children under five years old.

The two companies will ask the FDA to grant emergency use authorization to administer a low dose of its two-shot vaccine to children starting at six months old, even though they announced back in December that the vaccine did not produce an immune response in children between the ages of 2 to 4 years old similar to that of teenagers and adults. The two companies had decided to add a third shot to their clinical trials, a move that could have set back efforts to make the vaccine available for younger Americans.

But health experts urged Pfizer and BioNTech to go ahead and make the request to the FDA for the two-shot regimen while they wait for results of tests involving the third shot. The vaccine could be available for use as soon as late February if both the FDA and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grant final emergency approval.

Meanwhile, another U.S.-based pharmaceutical company, Novavax, announced Monday that it had submitted a request to the FDA for approval of its long-delayed COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use.

The two-shot vaccine was developed by a conventional method that uses proteins to teach the body’s immune system how to recognize and block the coronavirus. Clinical trials revealed the vaccine was about 90 percent effective at providing enough immunity to protect against the initial version of the disease and its variants. Experts say that technology could appeal to people who are hesitant to be inoculated with vaccines developed by Pfizer or Moderna that use the more advanced messenger RNA technology.

Novavax received $1.6 billion from the U.S. government through Operation Warp Speed, the program created under the administration of former U.S. president Donald Trump to quickly develop new coronavirus vaccines, but faced numerous delays due to a lack of manufacturing capacity. The vaccine has already been authorized by Indonesia, South Korea, India and the European Medicines Agency, the drug regulator for the 27-nation European Union. It is expected to play an important role in boosting vaccine supplies for low and middle-income nations because it does not have to be stored at ultracold temperatures, unlike the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines.

A report released Tuesday by the World Health Organization reveals the coronavirus pandemic has created tens of thousands of tons of extra medical waste, such as used needles, syringes and vials. The report found that most of the 87,000 tons of personal protective equipment (PPE), such as masks and rubber gloves, that were procured through a United Nations emergency initiative between March 2020 and November 2021 has ended up as waste.

The WHO report says the discarded material puts health care workers at risk of work-related injuries such as needle sticks, burns and disease-causing germs. Communities near poorly managed landfills are also at risk of contaminated air and water from burning waste and disease-carrying pests.

Source: Voice of America