VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

President Joko Widodo ordered Health Minister Terawan Agus Putranto to plan examinations for Covid-19 transmission in Indonesia.

"Regarding [Covid-19] testing, the Ministry of Health will make a really good planning design," President Jokowi said when chairing the Cabinet Meeting on Health Management and National Economic Recovery in 2021 at the State Palace on Monday.

President Jokowi said he did not want to see a large disparity between provinces in terms of COVID-19 testing.

"I don't want to see some provinces have very high testing, but some others are very low," he explained.

He told the Health Minister to plan comprehensively to detect which areas are still high in cases and which are sloping.

"The planning design must be comprehensive. We need planning to see how many labs there are in a province, how many reagents we must distribute per province, so we can see where the positive cases are," Jokowi said.

Jokowi said that the government prioritized public health issues during the COVID-19 pandemic. If health problems are handled properly, the national economy would also improve and recover to a positive economic growth trend.

"We want to restart the economic sector as soon as possible. Don't let the COVID-19 not handled properly," Jokowi concluded.

President Joko Widodo wants to reach 30,000 tests per day. However, due to limited medical equipment, only 28,000 tests can be taken per day. (RRI)