Francisca Christy Rosana, Jakarta – Epidemiologist from the University of Indonesia, Pandu Riono, believed that Indonesia would not face the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. He claimed to have expressed this optimism since August 2021 after the country dealt with a significant spike in cases due to the Delta variant.

"In August, I dared to say that there would be no COVID-19 third wave despite active mobility at the end of the year. But no one believed my words even though I had the data," said Pandu in an online discussion with the Indonesian Transportation Society, Thursday, December 21.

Pandu said his statement was backed up by the Jakarta serological survey which showed that the public immunity had reached 70 percent and was predicted to increase up to 90 percent.

Additionally, there has not been a new mutation of the coronavirus similar to the Delta variant. Although a number of countries recently confirmed the outbreak of the Omicron variant, he opined that the mutated virus was not the evolution of the Delta variant that caused a high mortality rate.

"We can see that from August until now there has been no significant surge in cases. So why do people still wary of a spike in cases? Because we are not too confident since the Delta variant still exists," said Pandu.

Thus, he underlined that vaccination is the key to achieving stability. "I targeted 100% vaccination coverage because every resident must have immunity. That way, we can guarantee stability until 2022 for all activities to run smoothly," said the epidemiologist.

Source: https://en.tempo.co/read/1542498/epidemiologist-optimistic-no-covid-19-third-wave-in-indonesi