Jayanty Nada Shofa, Jakarta – President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has received the second Sinovac's Covid-19 vaccine shot on Wednesday as the country pick up the pace in rolling out the Covid-19 vaccination throughout the archipelago.

The President is part of the first group receiving the Covavac vaccine, developed by China's biopharmaceutical firm Sinovac Biotech. The group includes top public officials, celebrities, and 1.49 million medical and health workers who the government aimed to be vaccinated by April.

Indonesia has vaccinated 83,726 medical workers on Tuesday, bringing the total vaccination since Jan 13 to 245,865. The country needs to administer the first doses of the vaccine to 14,033 people per day to meet its target to cover 1.49 million medical workers by the end of April.

The pace would need to double to 28,066 people per day starting on Wednesday, up from around 17,000 people per day on average currently, as the vaccine second-dose comes due. Despite the wide gap, the President remained optimistic.

"This is only the beginning of vaccination... and often there are many things in the management that needs to be improved," Jokowi said after receiving his second vaccine shot at the State Palace in Jakarta on Wednesday.

"In the past two days, there has been a sharp jump in the number of vaccinated medical workers. We were able to vaccinate 50,000 people in a day," Jokowi said.

The president said Indonesia now has 30,000 vaccinators in at least 10,000 community health centers and 3,000 hospitals throughout the archipelago, standing ready to involve in the vaccination program.

Indonesia would start vaccinating the general public in May, targeting more than 180 million people between 18 and 59 years old. The country targets to finish the vaccination by March next year. That means it has to administer more than a million first- and second-doses every day.

"This is our target. It takes time and needs good onsite management. That is what I always convey to the health minister," Jokowi said.

Source: https://jakartaglobe.id/news/jokowi-receives-his-second-covid19-vaccine-injectio