Increasing concerns about receiving the vaccination means reliable and understandable information is pivotal. Government spokeswoman on COVID-19 and ambassador for new habit adaptation, Reisa Broto Asmoro, updated everyone on the latest vaccination information for COVID-19 survivors and children under 12 during a virtual press gathering on Friday. 

Reisa, herself a physician, said as of September, there were more than 4 million COVID-19 survivors in Indonesia. She suggested that survivors kept monitoring and rebuilding their health by consuming healthy food, doing regular sports and maintaining health protocol discipline.

“Whenever you feel symptoms, directly request a medical consultation with a physician. Post-COVID-19 symptoms can indeed be unpleasant, but they are curable,” she said.

“So, if survivors are still experiencing symptoms like finding it hard to breath, getting easily tired, coughing or diarrhoea in the fourth week after being declared cured of COVID-19, then we need to anticipate that this is the post COVID-19 syndrome.”

She  mentioned that on Sept. 29, the Health Ministry issued a circulatory letter on COVID-19 vaccinations for survivors. In that letter, it explained how COVID-19 survivors with mild symptoms could be vaccinated a month after being declared cured. As for survivors still experiencing critically severe symptoms, he or she would need to wait until at least three months after being declared negative from COVID-19 to get vaccinated.

She highlighted that survivors should be in their prime condition when getting vaccinated so the vaccine would be well received by the body and provide the optimal protection. As for the brand of vaccine, she added, the best vaccines were those available at the time.

“So don’t get picky with these vaccines. The best vaccine for us is the one available,” she said.

For children under 12, Reisa said this was still under deliberation between the government and relevant authorities, especially about the safety of the vaccine for children in that age group. “We must protect our children with two strategies,” she said.

The first, she said, was introducing children to strict health protocol discipline, by regularly washing hands and wearing masks. Children had to be taught that not all public spaces were safe and therefore limiting mobility was mandatory. Second, parents must ensure they complete routine vaccinations for their children. Besides that, ensuring nutrition intake and physical activities according to the child’s growth were also necessary for children to grow optimally according to their age.

In the absence of a vaccine for children, according to Reisa, the main way to protect children under 12 was by ensuring the adults surrounding them had been vaccinated.

“This is what we call a collective effort, collective immunity. In some cases, even if there are only eight out of 10 people in a house who have been vaccinated, the rest of the family members could feel the benefit 100 percent,” she said.

She expected people to continue getting vaccinated, maintain health protocol discipline and avoid hoaxes, so the pandemic could be ended by the people’s efforts.

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