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Health minister criticized over vaccination claims in house hearing

Source
Tempo - August 25, 2021

Budiarti Utami Putri, Jakarta – The Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin on Wednesday presented the country's vaccination performance before members of the Commission IX House of Representatives (DPR), saying that it is still far from perfect.

However, Budi said that Indonesia ranked sixth in the global scale in terms of vaccinated population. "It is indeed not perfect but for your information, Indonesia ranked sixth in the world for vaccinated population and access towards vaccinations," the minister explained, August 25.

But the House members did not share the same enthusiasm. The Health Commission legislator Dewi Asmara questioned the minister's statement and feared that it would mislead people as it only shows the number of people who received the vaccination instead of the percentage of people in order to achieve herd immunity.

"I ask everyone to be very careful in making statements because if we refer to the John Hopkins University records, Indonesia still ranks 102," Dewi said.

The Golkar politician said she highly appreciates the government's attempts to inoculate a large portion of the Indonesian population. But Dewi asks not to misinterpret it to proclaim that Indonesia's pandemic mitigation has exceeded other nations.

"We shouldn't claim that we are that great in terms of world vaccination ranking because I fear it would be misleading," she added.

The Health Minister announced on Wednesday that Indonesia's Covid-19 vaccination had reached 59 million. He claimed Indonesia had administered 92 million doses Covid-19 vaccine. Budi was optimistic that the goal of inoculating 300 million people by the end of this year will be achieved.

Source: https://en.tempo.co/read/1498598/health-minister-criticized-over-vaccination-claims-in-house-hearin

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