|
 Jokowi, as the president is known, said the arrival of the highly
transmissible variant, which has been reported in more than 70
countries, had been inevitable and warned the public against being
complacent while less stringent measures were in place.
"I ask people who have not received the vaccine twice, immediately
go to a health facility and get the vaccine," he said in a
livestreamed address.
"Even though the domestic situation is close to normal, don't slack
off implementing health protocols."
The variant was detected on Wednesday evening in an employee of the
Wisma Atlet hospital in Jakarta, who had overseas travel history.
Indonesia has recorded more than 4.2 million cases of the
coronavirus and 143,000 deaths from COVID-19, but daily cases have
fallen dramatically since the middle of this year and many
restrictions have been eased.
Health minister, Budi Gunadi Sadikin, said there was so far no known
community transmission, but there were five suspected Omicron cases.
[to top of second column] |
 Those included two Indonesians
who had recently returned from the United States
and from Britain, and three Chinese nationals
currently in quarantine.
Authorities were awaiting genomic sequencing to
determine if those were the Omicron variant.
About 38% of Indonesia's population of about 270
million have had two doses of a COVID-19
vaccine.
The Omicron variant was first detected in South
Africa and Hong Kong last month. Indonesia's
neighbours, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and
the Philippines have also reported Omicron
cases, mostly imported.
Preliminary evidence indicates that COVID-19
vaccines may be less effective against the
variant, which also carries a higher risk of
re-infection, the World Health Organization
said.
(Reporting by Agustinus Beo Da Costa and
Fransiska Nangoy; Writing by Kate Lamb; Editing
by Ed Davies, Martin Petty)
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