Booster Vaccine as Travel Requirement Will Be Applied In 2 Weeks

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The government is still trying to boost national vaccination achievements by enacting new policy. The policy is to require booster vaccine for people who want to travel or enter public facilities. This will be implemented no later than two weeks.

Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan ensured that the government shortly will implement booster vaccines as a new requirement for travel and community activities.

“The government will implement a policy of incentives and disincentives by changing and re-enacting the requirements for booster vaccination as a condition for people’s mobility to public areas,” Luhut said in an official statement, as quoted on Wednesday (6/7/2022).

Luhut emphasized that this was one of the topics of discussion in the PPKM evaluation meeting held earlier this week with President Joko Widodo (Jokowi). This policy is still being evaluated.

“In addition, the government will also re-implement the requirement for booster vaccination as a condition for traveling by air, land, and sea which will be carried out in a maximum of two weeks,” he explained.

Luhut, who is the Coordinator of the Java-Bali PPKM, said that the decision to apply a booster vaccine as a travel requirement was motivated by the vaccination achievement which is still too low.

Until now, based on PeduliLindung data, of the 1.9 million people who enter the mall per day, only 24.6% have received the booster vaccine. Even though during increasing cases, booster vaccines can help increase the community’s antibodies.

“To encourage booster vaccination, travel requirements and entry to public places such as malls and offices will be changed to booster vaccination,” he explained.

“Vaccination centers in various places, such as airports, train stations, terminals, and shopping centers will also be activated to make it easier for the public to access vaccinations,” said Luhut.

Luhut emphasized that the government had also asked the TNI, Polri, and regional governments to intensify vaccination and tracing policies to prevent a widespread increase in cases in the future.

“The government is still and will continue to enforce the Java-Bali PPKM rules for an undetermined time. All will follow the results of evaluations led by the president regularly,” said Luhut.

As previously reported, the development of Covid-19 cases continues to increase. Yesterday, the number of daily confirmed cases suddenly exploded to 2,577 cases, the highest in recent months.

The government has decided to increase the level of implementation of the community activity restriction (PPKM) level 2 in the Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang, and Bekasi (Jabodetabek) areas for the next one month.

This is in line with the increase in Covid-19 cases triggered by the Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants. Both variants are the cause of the increase in cases, up to 2,000 per day.