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Govt maintains current PPKM restrictions
"We will extend the restrictions from July 5 to Aug. 1. Out of the 385 cities and regencies outside of Java and Bali, only one regency will implement PPKM level 2, while the remaining will continue to implement PPKM level 1," Airlangga told a press conference on Monday.
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he government will continue to implement the lowest level of public activity restrictions (PPKM) until early next month, assuring the loosened curbs would be enough to contain a recent spike in COVID-19 infections.
Coordinating Economic Minister Airlangga Hartarto, who oversees pandemic response in regions outside Java and Bali, said that almost all of the regions under his watch would maintain PPKM level 1, the least stringent in the four-tiered curbs.
"We will extend the restrictions from July 5 to Aug. 1. Out of the 385 cities and regencies outside of Java and Bali, only one regency will implement PPKM level 2, while the remaining will continue to implement PPKM level 1," Airlangga told a press conference on Monday.
Meanwhile, Home Ministry Regional Administration Development Director General Safrizal Z.A told the press that most regions in Java and Bali would also continue to implement PPKM level 1 until next month.
In addition to maintaining the relatively lax curbs, the government will continue to impose its already eased rules for mask-wearing despite mounting calls by health experts and medical professionals to review the policy amid the current spike in infections.
Just last month, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo announced that people were no longer required to wear masks outdoors, although he still recommended mask-wearing in crowded outdoor settings, as well as for the elderly and those with underlying health conditions and acute coughing.
Read also: Indonesia to drop outdoor mask mandate as COVID-19 infections drop
Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said on Monday there would be no change in the mask policy so far, effectively dismissing previous statements by Vice President Ma'ruf Amin who said outdoor mask-wearing would be made mandatory again amid the recent case surge.
Budi said the government was confident that the recent wave of cases, fueled by highly contagious Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5, will be fairly limited compared to previous waves.
"Although cases have generally been rising, we have started to see a plateau. We are currently nearing the peak of the BA.4 and BA.5 wave, but our daily new cases is only 4 to 5 percent of the peak of the Omicron-fueled wave earlier this year," he said.
Previously, Budi said that based on the government's epidemiological modeling, the current surge was expected to peak in the second or third week of this month. The minister also predicted that daily new cases numbers during this time could reach 20,000, roughly 30 percent of the Omicron wave’s peak of around 60,000 daily cases.
Stagnating infections
Indonesia recorded around 13,400 confirmed COVID-19 cases last week, a 9 percent increase from the week before that with 12,300 cases. Fatalities rose by 6 percent last week to 32 cases from 30 deaths a week prior.
However, daily case numbers have been declining for three consecutive days, from some 2,300 on Thursday, 2,000 on Friday and 1,700 on Saturday to 1,600 cases on Sunday.
Read also: Indonesia braces for another COVID-19 wave
Nationwide COVID-19 bed occupancy rates have also been relatively stable, staying at around 2 percent in the past week.
Budi attributed the relatively stable COVID-19 situation to the fact that around 99 percent of the population in Java and Bali already have some form of immunity against the coronavirus, either through infection or vaccination, according to a government survey conducted in March.
But Epidemiologist Dicky Budiman said it was still too early to conclude that Indonesia would see a fairly limited case surge in the next few weeks.
"It's difficult to conclude whether we will see a lower surge of transmissions compared to previous waves, as Indonesia is now taking a passive approach to testing. This means that authorities won't find many cases if the public is reluctant to go to testing centers.”
He also predicted that the current wave of infections would likely last longer than previous waves, especially with the recent emergence of a new Omicron subvariant called BA.2.75. The subvariant has a better capacity to evade the immune system compared to the original strain and has contributed to a surge of infections in India.
More efforts needed
Despite agreeing that PPKM level 1 should be maintained, Dicky advised the government to increase testing rates, speed up booster rollouts to 50 percent of Indonesia's targeted population, return to strict mask rules indoors and outdoors, and allow 20 percent of office workers to work remotely.
Read also: PPKM system stays as restrictions loosen
Indonesia has been lagging in its vaccination rate. As of Thursday, the country has administered 370 million primary doses to 62 percent of the population, which means it has the second-lowest vaccine coverage in Southeast Asia.
So far, only about 24 percent of the targeted 208 million people have received booster shots.
The government is currently formulating a plan to make a third shot mandatory for domestic air travel in a bid to increase vaccination coverage and improve the public's immunity against new COVID-19 sub-variants.
Last month, the national COVID-19 task force issued a circular mandating boosters for people aged 18 and above who attend crowd-pulling events of more than 1,000 visitors, while all children between the ages of 6 and 17 at such events must be fully vaccinated.
