VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

No more districts or cities in Java-Bali are implementing Level 4 public activity restrictions (PPKM), Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment and PPKM coordinator for Java-Bali, Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, has said.

"Currently, in Java-Bali, there are no more districts or cities that are at Level 4. All of them are at Level 3 or 2 of (PPKM)," Pandjaitan informed at an online press conference here on Monday.

The COVID-19 situation has continued to show improvement, he said.

At the press conference, he also presented estimates provided by a team of epidemiologists from the University of Indonesia's Faculty of Public Health, which show virus reproduction in Indonesia has fallen below 1 to reach 0.98 for the first time amid the pandemic.

"This figure means that every one case of COVID-19, it spreads to 0.9 people, which means the number of cases will continue to decrease. It also shows that the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia is already under control. It is the assessment of our advisory team," Pandjaitan explained.

The trend in daily case movement has also shown continuous improvement, he said.

As of Monday (September 20, 2021), national confirmed cases were recorded below two thousand and active cases were lower than 60 thousand. For Java-Bali, daily cases fell by 98 percent from their peak on July 15, 2021, he added.

"I am saying that this figure is the bright results of all the teams' hard work. However, the President is still reminding us to be super vigilant in facing the (pandemic) because it is not impossible that there would be a third wave," he affirmed.

As directed by the President during Monday's limited meeting, it has been decided that by considering the case development, level adjustments for PPKM in Java-Bali will be applied for two weeks, the minister said.

However, evaluations will be carried out every week to anticipate changes that happen quickly, he added.

"We are not going to make drastic changes. I ask for the understanding of the people of Indonesia. Why not (make drastic changes)? Because we do not want to make any mistakes as we do not know a lot about this Delta variant," he said. (Antaranews)