VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Indonesia's positivity rate, which has dipped below 2 percent, indicates good COVID-19 handling in the country, Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment and PPKM coordinator for Java-Bali, Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, has said.

The positivity rate is the ratio between the number of positive cases of COVID-19 and the number of tests carried out. The COVID-19 Handling Task Force has pegged the positivity rate in Indonesia as of Monday (September 20) at 1.28 percent.

"Currently, Indonesia's positivity rate is below 2 percent. This indicates that COVID-19 handling has been running well and following the standards of the WHO," Pandjaitan said.

According to the minister, during the implementation of public activity restrictions (PPKM), despite the drop in cases, testing continued to be boosted so that the positivity rate could be lowered to below the WHO standard of 5 percent.

In addition, the number of tracing efforts also continued to be increased day by day, he said. Currently, the proportion of districts and cities in Java-Bali with tracing levels below 5 is only 36 percent of the total, he informed.

"In the future, testing, tracing, combined with centralized isolation, will be an important part to identify early on the potential of COVID-19 transmission and also the use of PeduliLindungi app, which is getting better, more equipped, more perfected," Pandjaitan said.

The minister said he expects that Indonesia will be able to control the pandemic by implementing the 3Ts, 3Ms, using the PeduliLindungi app, and carrying out massive vaccinations.

Reflecting on the experiences of other countries, vaccination is a necessary condition in the pandemic-to-endemic transition, he added.

However, he noted, vaccinations in several districts and cities need to be intensified further, especially among older adults since many of the COVID-19 deaths have been recorded in this group, to help the nation reach the 70-percent first dose vaccination target. (Antaranews)