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Losing moral direction
We condemn the public officials who have accepted third COVID-19 vaccine shots while millions of Indonesians remain unvaccinated and many health workers, who badly need greater protection against the Delta variant, have not received booster shots.
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Social responsibility: A man is inoculated during a mass vaccination event in Jakarta. (Kompas.com/Kristanto Purnomo)
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eports of government officials accepting COVID-19 booster shots while the majority of the country remains unvaccinated shows how some of the very people tasked with drafting, executing and overseeing policies to address the pandemic have lost their sense of moral direction in fighting the disease.
The current World Health Organization (WHO) stance on booster vaccines is clear: They are needed but should be delayed because many countries are still struggling to provide the first round of inoculations.
While there are good reasons for a third shot, such as waning protection, the WHO says infections among vaccinated people are still “less severe than those seen in unvaccinated people”.
“In the context of ongoing global vaccine supply constraints, administration of booster doses will exacerbate inequities by driving up demand and consuming scarce supply while priority populations in some countries, or subnational settings, have not yet received a primary vaccination series,” the organization wrote.
We therefore condemn the public officials who have accepted third shots while millions of Indonesians are still unvaccinated and many health workers, who badly need greater protection against the Delta variant, have not received booster shots.
Only 12 percent of Indonesia’s population has been fully vaccinated, according to Health Ministry data. Millions of people, particularly those outside Java, are still waiting their turn for a jab.
West Kalimantan Governor Sutarmidji recently lashed out at Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin after his province was singled out for having a low vaccination rate. The governor said West Kalimantan simply did not have enough doses.
“What should we use? Rain water?” he asked.
The province is seeking to vaccinate 3.8 million people, which means it needs twice that number of vaccine doses, but the administration has only received 1.3 million doses from the central government.
A video has been circulating online appearing to show thousands of people crowding a vaccination center in Palembang, South Sumatra, raising concerns about gaps in vaccine supply.
Indonesia is not the only country struggling with vaccine shortages. The WHO has failed to stop rich nations from hoarding vaccines and exacerbating vaccine inequality. The United States government, for example, recently decided to give US adults third shots, eliciting condemnation from WHO officials.
We call on the central government to speed up the vaccine drive and ensure that everyone is inoculated before it begins administering third shots – except to health workers and other essential frontline workers. Public officials whose jobs do not expose them to the virus on a daily basis do not deserve to jump the line.
Every citizen has an equal right to health protection. Policy makers must have the moral strength to ensure that our vaccine strategy is based on this principle of equality.
