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COVID-19: Three Batam city buffer islands get green zone status

Three of Batam city's buffer islands have been declared COVID-19 green zones following the recovery of five Belakangpadang islanders, a government official said.

"Alhamdulillah (Thank God), Belakangpadang Island has again turned into a COVID-19 green zone," Belakangpadang sub-district head Yudi Admaji told journalists here on Friday.

Batam city's COVID-19 task force confirmed earlier that five members of a family in Belakangpadang Island had fully recovered from the novel coronavirus disease on Thursday evening.

Besides Belakangpadang, two more buffer islands -- Bulang and Galang -- also obtained their green zone status. However, the infection rate in Batam Island has increased, the COVID-19 task force informed.

Last week, the island's areas were still dominated by COVID-19 yellow zones, but this week, the sub-districts of Lubuk Baja and Batam city have turned into deep red zones, it said.

At the same time, the sub-districts of Sekupang, Sei Beduk, and Bengkong have turned into bright red zones, while four other sub-districts have remained yellow zones, it added.The four sub-districts are Batuaji, Sagulung, Batuampar, and Nongsa, according to the COVID-19 task force.

Batam city recorded eight new confirmed cases in the 24 hours ended Thursday evening, taking the total number of positive cases to 6,186.

Batam city's recovery rate also rose to 4,873 after 25 residents fully recovered from the deadly disease.

Since the Indonesian government officially announced the country's first COVID-19 cases on March 2, 2020, Batam city has lost 155 residents to the coronavirus.

"At present, 158 infected residents are still hospitalized,” said head of Batam city's Health Office, Didi Kusmarjadi.Indonesia, which has been striving to win the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, rolled out a nationwide vaccination program on January 13 this year to stem the spread of the disease.

According to the Health Ministry, it will take about 15 months to vaccinate about 181.5 million people under the national program.

"We need 15 months to accomplish it. The time-frame for conducting the vaccination is counted from January, 2021 to March, 2022," Health Ministry's spokesperson for the vaccination program, Siti Nadia Tarmizi, stated recently.

During the period, the government is targeting to inoculate about 181.5 million people, including 1.3 million paramedics and 17.4 million public sector workers in 34 provinces, she informed.

Tarmizi noted that the first phase of the government's immunization program has been divided into two periods: January-April, 2021 and April, 2021-March, 2022//ANT