Jakarta – Early in October President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo was upbeat, thinking the government was an inch closer to declaring the COVID-19 pandemic over. That such a hope has not been realized after about two months may, however, be a blessing in disguise, simply because we are not yet certain whether we have managed to get the pandemic under control.

As we know, SARS-Cov-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has mutated several times and the trend is the newer the strain the more transmissible, which, although not necessarily more lethal, remains dangerous. We can see COVID-19 remains such a great concern in China that the government there has maintained strict measures, including lockdowns, to ensure the country is fully free from it.

Statistics show Indonesia has kept new COVID-19 cases low at an average of 5,025 per day last week, with the lowest level of 4,977 cases recorded on Thursday. The government said 22 provinces have consistently reported a downward trend of new infections, but in seven provinces the number of new cases is on the rise.

The government admits the new subvariants XBB and BQ.1 of Omicron strain are responsible for about 90 percent of new COVID-19 cases in the country recently. The Health Ministry has anticipated the peak of the subvariants-driven outbreak at the end of this month, when people will celebrate New Year.

Medical experts say XBB is more prevalent in Asia. What makes the two Omicron subvariants a cause for concern is their ability to escape neutralizing antibodies generated by COVID-19 vaccines. Worse, many people catching the new strains do not complain about fever, the most common symptom of COVID-19 infection.

Gone is the chaos that prevailed in the country during the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic in mid-2021, when the number of single-day infection cases hit a record 56,700. The world has even now acknowledged Indonesia's COVID-19 strategy as among the best, according to chairman of the Indonesian Medical Association (IDI) Adib Khumaidi.

The praises, if any, however, should not lead us to complacency. One of the reasons behind the country's success in drastically lowering COVID-19 infection is its mass vaccination program, which has now reached its fourth phase. In the current vaccine rollout, the government is providing second booster shots to health workers and people aged 60 years or older.

The government data reveal over 203 million people or 86.8 percent of the targeted population have received the first dose of vaccine and 174.26 million or 74.3 percent of the targeted population have been fully vaccinated.

But the danger of another COVID-19 tsunami is still lurking as booster vaccines have reached only 28 percent of the targeted population so far. Papua and West Sulawesi are provinces with the lowest coverage with 7.75 percent and 10.33 percent respectively. In fact, there are 10 provinces, all of which are outside of Java and Bali, whose third vaccine rollout coverage stands at below 17.5 percent.

There has been a common understanding that a vaccine's effectiveness in protecting the human's body against COVID-19 will decline after six months, which is why the government must accelerate its booster-vaccine rollout.

The long holiday between Christmas and New Year is approaching, and so is the next daunting test of our resilience against COVID-19.

Source: https://www.thejakartapost.com/opinion/2022/12/04/more-boosters-please.htm