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Amid sluggish vaccination roll-out, elderly vulnerable in 'mudik'
Despite a second ban on mudik during the pandemic in as many years, Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin conceded that people are bound to find ways to return to their hometowns for the Muslim holiday.
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A senior citizen at the Rumoh Seujahtra Geunaseh Sayang nursing home in Banda Aceh, Aceh poses while wearing a mask as an effort to prevent COVID-19 transmission on May 1, 2020. (Antara/Irwansyah Putra)
T
he sluggish pace of the government’s vaccine roll-out for at-risk groups such as the elderly, who are most susceptible to the COVID-19 outbreak, has prompted concerns that senior citizens will bear the brunt of the spread of the disease as a result of the mudik (exodus) season that coincides with the Idul Fitri holiday.
Despite a second ban on mudik during the pandemic in as many years, Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin conceded that people are bound to find ways to return to their hometowns for the Muslim holiday.
As such, he called on regions that are the main mudik destinations to speed up their vaccine roll-outs for the elderly. The mudik season begins in around three weeks’ time.
While only accounting for around 10 percent of COVID-19 cases, senior citizens make up half of all fatalities related to the disease in the country. The case fatality rate of this age group is four times that of the national rate, with one in every three seniors hospitalized with COVID-19 turning fatal, data presented by Budi showed. Other age groups see about one in every 10 people hospitalized.
Even amid limited vaccine supplies, inoculation of the nation’s elderly continues to lag behind that of public sector and essential workers, who are also being prioritized in the ongoing phase two roll-out of the vaccination campaign.
Over 7.5 million of the 17.3 million workers targeted have received at least their first jab, about three times as many as the elderly. From the 21.5 million seniors being targeted, just 2.3 million have gotten their first jab.
The Health Ministry recommends that local administrations allocate 60 percent of their vaccine supplies for seniors while the remainder goes toward educators amid plans to reopen schools by July. But Budi said that due to regional autonomy laws, the central government could not dictate further how regional administrators used their vaccines.
