Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – After experiencing the second wave, Indonesia is also haunted by the third wave of Covid-19. Epidemiologist at Griffith University, Australia, Dicky Budiman, said that Indonesia’s current position is not far from that of other ASEAN countries that are experiencing an increase in cases.
“The problem is capacity testing, this is why the rise of potential cases will be large because 3T is limited because we are still not compared to Singapore, we are still under 50% coverage twice. It’s clear that the potential for improvement will occur,” Dicky told CNBC Indonesia, Sunday (26/9/2021).
He said it was rather difficult to predict when wave three would occur. Possibly in December it could happen because at that time there would be a public mobility holiday.
However, this mobility occurs when vaccination is not complete, 3T efforts are not adequate, and the 5M health protocol is loosening in the regions. This is done in the midst of the phenomenon of ‘revenge’ because of freedom.
“In the middle there is a phenomenon of revenge for this freedom. Now that will cause a potential spike and even a third wave,” he said.
Dicky believes that it is better to strengthen the response to PPKM. This can be learned from Norway which withstood the level cap of one to almost half a year.
“Remember that Norwegian is only level 1 he loosened, but he waited almost half a year. Almost half a year waiting for level 2 to level 1,” he explained.
“This is an important lesson to ensure all aspects. Now we tend to be loose when good news is more loose when bad becomes tight. This is a potential weakness so that we can be in a bad situation again.”
Previously, the Minister of Communications and Information, Johnny Plate, said there was a potential for a third wave of Covid-19. This is because the increasing mobility of people is accompanied by the neglect of health protocols and not just new variants.
“For that, we need to jointly anticipate a spike in Covid cases. The application of health protocols must always be applied to avoid a spike in cases,” he said.
Citing data from the Ministry of Health, he said that since August 2, there has been a significant increase in mobility in the Java-Bali region. This is also in accordance with the World Health Organization (WHO) report released September 15, 2021, with four high mobility areas, namely West Java, Central Java, East Java and Banten.
“The increase in mobility, which is now even equal to conditions before the pandemic, must be a shared concern. We all must always be vigilant and not be careless in implementing health protocols, so that increasing community mobility can continue to be in line with efforts to handle the Covid-19 pandemic,” Johnny explained.
(boss / boss)
– .
