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With vigilance, pandemic in Indonesia inches toward end
With the World Health Organization proclaiming that the end of the COVID-19 pandemic is in sight, health experts are urging the government to enact consistent strategies to ensure the road to endemicity is trouble-free.
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This handout picture taken and released by the World Health Organization on Oct. 5, 2020 shows WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus speaking at a WHO executive board special session on the COVID-19 response in Geneva, Switzerland. (AFP/World Health Organization /Christopher Black)
W
ith the World Health Organization calling on countries to seize the opportunity to end the COVID-19 pandemic now that global figures have fallen to their lowest point since 2020, health experts are urging the government not to get complacent and enact consistent strategies to ensure the road to endemicity in Indonesia remains smooth and trouble-free.
WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced on Wednesday that the number of newly reported COVID-19 cases had dropped dramatically, saying that the world had “never been in a better position to end the pandemic”.
Newly reported cases of the disease, which has killed millions since being identified in late 2019, last week fell to the lowest level since March 2020, according to the WHO’s latest epidemiological report on COVID-19.
In the first week of September, the WHO recorded some 11,300 weekly deaths globally, a 19 percent decrease from the previous week and roughly half the fatalities recorded during the second week of March 2020 (20,700 deaths).
If the current trend of low hospitalizations and deaths continues, the WHO might revoke the public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) status for COVID-19 by mid-next year at the latest, epidemiologist Dicky Budiman from Griffith University in Australia said.
That would effectively spell the end of the pandemic, he suggested.
“The continuous decline in hospitalizations and deaths across the globe are strong indicators that we’re on the right track to end the pandemic,” Dicky told The Jakarta Post on Thursday, corroborating the WHO assessment.
