Maria Fatima Bona & Jayanty Nada Shofa, Jakarta – The Health Ministry revealed on Wednesday that it had identified 140 new Omicron infections, bringing Indonesia's tally of the highly transmissible Covid-19 variant to 1,766.

Siti Nadia Tarmizi, the ministry's director for prevention and control of direct communicable diseases, said the Omicron-infected patients were mostly people who had returned from overseas trips.

She added that 1,066 out of the 1,766 Omicron cases are related to international travelers.

"As many as 449 [Omicron] cases are locally transmitted and 251 remain under epidemiologic investigation," Siti said.

The addition of 140 new Omicron infections marks an 8.61 percent increase from 1,626 cases on Monday.

According to Monday's Omicron figures, 1,019 of the 1,626 cases had recent international travel history, whereas 369 were locally transmitted. About 238 cases were still undergoing epidemiologic investigation. Beritasatu reported that a majority of the said international travelers had just returned from Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the US, Malaysia, and United Arab Emirates.

Indonesia's Omicron tally on Jan. 22 stood at 1,369 cases.

Of that number, 71.7 percent of the Omicron patients were fully vaccinated, while 18.9 percent's vaccination status was unknown, the Health Ministry reported. Those with the unknown vaccination status were classified as such as they were still under epidemiologic investigation.

Around 6.1 percent of the 1,369 Omicron patients were unvaccinated individuals. About 3.3 percent had only been partially vaccinated, according to the Health Ministry.

Source: https://jakartaglobe.id/news/indonesias-omicron-tally-now-at-176