VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Indonesia is striving to ramp up its vaccination program to administer between 750 thousand and one million COVID-19 vaccine shots per day in July this year from nearly 600 thousand shots per day in June.

Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan said he has urged Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin to achieve the target.

"I have seen the increased number of new COVID-19 cases. The total number of positive cases reached almost eight thousand yesterday," Pandjaitan said during a webinar here on Thursday.

He also highlighted the importance of intensifying mitigation efforts to deal with a spike in new coronavirus infections post the Eid al-Fitr holiday season and called for closer collaboration between government officials and community members on handling it.

On Wednesday, Indonesia recorded 7,725 new COVID-19 cases from 34 provinces, he disclosed and urged Indonesians to learn from China on containing the pandemic.

"Thanks to its high discipline, with a population of some 1.4 billion, China has been able to contain the pandemic. Let us take China an obvious example," he remarked.

The COVID-19 outbreak initially struck the Chinese city of Wuhan in 2019 and thereafter spread across the world, including to countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

The Indonesian government announced the nation's first confirmed cases on March 2, 2020.

The central and regional governments have been working continuously to flatten the coronavirus curve by applying healthcare protocols and social restrictions.

To break the chain of spread of COVID-19, which has dampened the purchasing power of families throughout Indonesia, the government had banned homebound travel, or "mudik," ahead of this year's Eid al-Fitr holiday season, like last year.

Vice Health Minister Dante Saksono Harbuwono projected the number of COVID-19 cases in Indonesia, in the wake of the Eid al-Fitr festivities, to peak in mid-June this year.

To prevent new transmission clusters from surfacing, the government is planning to extend the quarantine period for travelers arriving from abroad, especially from countries hit by the COVID-19 crisis, to 14 days from five days earlier.

Currently, Indonesia's total COVID-19 caseload exceeds 1.8 million.

The government, which is making efforts to win the battle against the disease which has acutely impacted the economy and public health, commenced a nationwide vaccination program to contain infections on January 13, 2021. (Antaranews)