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Interview: Colombian ambassador talks COVID-19 strategies, post-pandemic plans
The Jakarta Post spoke with Colombian Ambassador to Indonesia Juan Camilo Valencia Gonzalez about Indonesia-Colombia bilateral cooperation, multilateral coordination and post-pandemic potentials.
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Colombian Ambassador to Indonesia Juan Camilo Valencia Gonzalez (Colombian Embassy Jakarta/-)
R
em>Regardless of the geographical distance between the two countries, Indonesia and Colombia are working together to weather the COVID-19 pandemic. The Jakarta Post’s Dian Septiari spoke with Colombian Ambassador to Indonesia Juan Camilo Valencia Gonzalez about bilateral relations and the South American country’s experience in maintaining regional stability. Following are excerpts from the interview:
Question: How are Indonesia and Colombia cooperating in their COVID-19 response, bilaterally and multilaterally?
Answer: At the multilateral level, we both participate in the COVAX [Facility] and other multilateral [discussions on] COVID-19. We have [also] been sharing information that we get from Colombia with the national authorities of Indonesia, so they [have] information on what is happening to us and vice versa.
For example, when Indonesia took the decision to vaccinate the young people first, we shared a lot of information with the Colombian government about why Indonesia was taking this measure, [and if we] can follow the same path that Indonesia was taking at the time.
[But we decided] our vaccination strategy was to start with the most vulnerable population, the oldest population. […] From there, we started to go down [the age groups] and right now, we are in the phase where we are vaccinating people around 35 years old. This means we have already [protected] the most vulnerable populations with the vaccines.
Can you share Colombia’s plan to open direct flights after the pandemic ends?
The idea of connectivity started with the flight that we did with [Garuda Indonesia] last year. We worked with Garuda to repatriate a lot of Colombians that we had [in] this area of the world, in Indonesia, Thailand, India, Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong.
