Gov't: COVID-19 in Indonesia Has Become Endemic

Liputan6.com, Jakarta - Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto said that the COVID-19 situation has become endemic. It was due to the case decreasing for almost a year.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) criteria, the COVID-19 situation is now on Level 1, he said. Airlangga also said that Indonesia was already on Level 1 for 12 months.

"It means, as a nation, the pandemic has become endemic and it is already on Level 1," Airlangga Hartarto said in the Merdeka Palace on Wednesday (21/12/2022).

According to Airlangga, the daily case of COVID-19 is around 2,000 for the last few days. Therefore, the government will begin to prepare for the end of the Implementation of Community Activity Restrictions (PPKM).

"Of course there is a preparation that will be done by the Ministry of Health, such as sero-survey, but Insya Allah it can be done," he explained.

Earlier, President Jokowi said that the government will end the Implementation of Community Activity Restrictions, which are the regulations made to handle COVID-19 in Indonesia due to the decreasing case of COVID-19.

"And today, yesterday, the case is at 2,000. And maybe later by the end of the year, we will declare the end of our PSBB (Large-Scale Social Restrictions), PPKM," Jokowi said.

He mentioned that Indonesia's journey against COVID-19 since 2020 was hard, especially when the Delta variant entered the country which caused the daily case to rise to 56,000 cases.

After Delta, Indonesia faced another case increase due to Omicron variants. The total case reached 64,000 cases daily when Omicron was at its peak.

Jokowi remembered that at that moment about 80 percent of ministers and the public recommended lockdown and quarantine in Indonesia. However, he decided not to apply those regulations.

"If we did that at that moment, it would be a different story, said Jokowi. 

This is not the first time President Jokowi is expressing gratitude for not conducting a full lockdown in Indonesia, as some other nations did. Jokowi also thought that Indonesia successfully handled the hard situations at that moment.

"Fortunately we were calm at the moment, not nervous, not baffled so that the situation that was so difficult could be handled well," said Jokowi.

Writer: Adelina Wahyu Martanti.

Lizsa Egeham contributed to this report.