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Third Omicron case sparks call for vigilance
Religious Affairs Ministry postpones ‘umrah’ travel
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hree cases of the Omicron mutation of COVID-19 have sparked calls for a surveillance intervention to prevent a third wave of infections ahead of the Christmas holidays.
Indonesia was one of the latest nations to report confirmed cases of the more contagious variant, after weeks of being on high alert as the strain swept across the world and was detected in 89 countries, including neighboring states.
It was also one of the more lenient countries in terms of imposing travel and activity restrictions when the variant was reported, which sparked calls for more vigilance, especially after two more Omicron cases were confirmed on Friday among returning travelers.
Health Ministry spokeswoman Siti Nadia Tarmizi said the two new cases were detected after authorities completed genomic sequencing of the five suspected cases first revealed on Thursday.
“The two new confirmed patients are identified as IKWJ, a 42-year-old male who returned from South America, and M, a 50-year-old male who returned from England. Both patients are currently in quarantine at the athletes village,” Nadia said, in reference to the state-run sport facility in Jakarta that was converted into a COVID-19 quarantine and emergency hospital last year.
Authorities were able to flag the five suspected cases and the first confirmed case using a specific type polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test that can detect the S-gene target failure (SGTF), which is one of the identifiers of the Omicron mutations, the health official said. These tests were conducted on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Three other suspected cases are Chinese nationals currently in quarantine at a hospital in Manado, North Sulawesi. Their samples, kompas.com reports, have been sent to the ministry’s health research and development agency in Jakarta, but their results have yet to come back.
In total, the government has so far reported three Omicron cases, including the first confirmed patient, identified only as N, who works as a cleaner at the quarantine facility.
It remains unclear how N was infected or whether he was exposed to the virus strain by a colleague or a patient. But he has already tested negative after quarantine, a fact that has buoyed authorities and health experts alike.
Third wave worries
Even so, anticipation remains a slippery slope in the nation’s overall response, as authorities still try to find a balance between safe containment and spurring economic recovery. The results of this have been less than perfect.
In the past two years of the pandemic, Indonesia has never managed to avert a surge in cases after a holiday spell. Just two weeks after the Idul Fitri holiday in mid-May, the nation experienced its worst infection wave, which was exacerbated by the highly transmissible Delta variant. The national healthcare system buckled under pressure.
Preliminary scientific data suggest that Omicron is even more contagious than the Delta variant, having ravaged many countries around the world, including those with high COVID-19 vaccine coverage like the United States, the United Kingdom or others from mainland Europe.
Dicky Budiman, an epidemiologist at Griffith University in Australia, said the Omicron variant was a “clear threat” to Indonesia’s pandemic response due to its ability to infect both the vaccinated and unvaccinated and reinfect people who have supposedly already developed immunity.
“There’s virtually no obstacle [to widespread transmission]. If we look at the UK or the US, the exponential growth illustrates how the virus could move among those who are vaccinated and unvaccinated,” he said on Sunday.
Surveillance bias
Dicky also warned against surveillance bias, because even though Indonesia is experiencing relatively low infection numbers, policymakers should not limit themselves to relying on a few indicators like case numbers, positivity rate or reproduction rate.
Surveillance bias is the idea that health indicators, when seen over time, do not necessarily represent an accurate picture of the situation that is currently developing, due to differences in the modality of detection.
Dicky said even though transmission levels were currently relatively slowing when compared to the levels during the second wave in July and August, community transmission still occurs across the country. This means Indonesia “is not truly safe and has not escaped the crisis yet”, he said.
“Furthermore, Indonesia is not a country that has isolated itself over the past month before [the first Omicron case] was found, and the genomic surveillance remains limited.”
As a first step, he suggested that the government should be more proactive in tracing the spread of the virus, even though the new variants were detected under quarantine.
Despite the recent travel ban on foreigners with a recent history of visiting territories where the Omicron strain has been detected at the community level, many people are still able to cross the border, especially returning travelers and foreigners with special visas. As many as 3,000 people have reportedly crossed the border into Indonesia every day for the past month, kompas.com reported.
Authorities currently require Indonesians returning from countries with Omicron to undergo a 14-day quarantine, while citizens arriving from countries not on the black list must observe a 10-day mandatory quarantine period.
International travel advisory
The government has urged people to remain vigilant and refrain from making any international trips to prevent any transmission of Omicron in the country upon their return.
As a result, it has also decided against allowing pilgrims to travel to Saudi Arabia for umrah (minor haj) this month and will postpone the travel to next year.
The Religious Affairs Ministry’s haj and umrah director general Hilman Latief said the decision was made after President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo advised against overseas travel.
“We are prioritizing the pilgrims’ safety in the midst of this pandemic, especially with the new Omicront variant,” Hilman said in a statement on Saturday.
The umrah is a pilgrimage by Muslims that can be undertaken any time of year, unlike the haj, which can only be performed once every year.
The official said that the Umrah Travel Agency Association (PPIU) supported the government’s international travel advisory, and that safety guidelines would be drafted for pilgrimages next year.
