Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – In the last few days there has been a lot of news about foreigners leaving the Republic of Indonesia and returning to their country. This is related to the high number of Covid-19 cases in Indonesia, which reaches an average of 50 thousand new cases per day.
Apparently, not only foreigners, local residents were also reported to have left the Republic of Indonesia. One reason, to get a vaccine shot in the United States.
This was revealed in the news ABCNews, Sunday (18/7/2021). Some people in Indonesia have decided to go to Uncle Sam’s country to get an injection of the Pfizer, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccines.
“There is nothing wrong with getting injections abroad, it all comes down to personal preference, I think,” said the media source, an Indonesian citizen, Nona Razak.
“I have kids studying here. We’ve made plans to visit them, and the US just happens to be offering free vaccines. So I thought, Why don’t we do both?” he said again.
“My preference is Pfizer, but we don’t know when we can get it in Indonesia until we decide on the opportunity to go to the US.”
Razak himself is said to have gotten a second injection of Pfizer. He and his family are said to be returning to Indonesia again in the next two weeks.
Actually, vaccination tours in the US are known to have started in May and are arranged by several travel agents. They said the enthusiasm of Indonesian citizens to go to the US was quite high.
The US does allow vaccine injections to people holding that country’s visa. They even get vaccines for free.
“The enthusiasm is very high, we get a lot of questions, because they are eyeing vaccines that do not yet exist in Indonesia, such as Pfizer or Moderna,” said ATS Travel marketing head Josephine Nathania Lienardi, quoted from the same media.
ATS itself offers vaccination travel packages with a price starting from Rp. 14 million for three nights in Los Angeles. The average tour will take place from June to November.
“They can choose to have the injection or not, it’s up to them,” the travel agent said.
As of Sunday, Indonesia recorded 44,721 new Covid-19 cases in Indonesia. Although daily cases fell compared to the previous day, yesterday’s daily death toll was a record to 1,093 cases. Overall, Indonesia recorded 1.83 million total Covid-19 cases with 73,000 deaths since the pandemic hit.
In terms of vaccination, only 5.8% of Indonesians were fully vaccinated against Covid-19. This is about 15 million people from the target of 181.5 million in March next year.
Indonesia recorded 20.4 doses per 100 people, still below India which injected 28 doses per 100 people and the world average which reached 45 doses per 100 people.
(Cha Cha dance)
– .
