The commitment to Covid-19 control should reach every region. Communication needs to be improved so people are willing to be vaccinated. If necessary, there should be more vaccinators.
By
KOMPAS EDITOR
·3 minutes read
ERIKA KURNIA
A Damri bus with military guard unloads Indonesian citizens who have just returned from abroad at the parking lot of Pasar Rumput Flats, South Jakarta, Tuesday (21/12/2021, Indonesia has recorded 1,161 confirmed cases of Omicron, according to Health Ministry data gathered from 1 Dec. 2021 to Saturday (22/1/2022).
Omicron, the coronavirus variant that is currently spreading rapidly, is said to cause only mild symptoms. However, several countries are seeing a rise in Covid-19 deaths.
Preliminary studies in the United Kingdom and South Africa have shown that fewer people need to be hospitalized for an Omicron infection. Most Omicron cases are mild, especially in fully vaccinated people who have also gotten a booster dose.
Indonesia has recorded 1,161 confirmed cases of Omicron, according to Health Ministry data gathered from 1 Dec. 2021 to Saturday (22/1/2022). Recently, two Omicron deaths have been confirmed: a 64-year-old unvaccinated man who caught the variant through local transmission and a fully vaccinated 54-year-old woman who had a history of overseas travel. Both had comorbidities.
The Singaporean Health Ministry recorded that country’s first death on Thursday (20/1/2022). An unvaccinated 92-year-old woman died following 10 days of treatment after she contracted the virus from a family member. In India, the first Omicron death, recorded late last year, occurred in a fully vaccinated 74-year-old man who had diabetes and other comorbidities.
In the United States, the first confirmed Omicron death occurred in an unvaccinated man in his 50s who had comorbidities. A model generated by experts estimated that 1.5 million people would be hospitalized and 191,000 people would die in the US from mid-December 2021 to March 2022. Considering the model’s margin of error, the estimated range of deaths from Omicron is between 58,000 and 305,000.
KOMPAS
The Ministry of Health reported two cases of deaths from the Omicron variant of Covid-19 patients, on Saturday (22/1/2022)..
Deaths from the Omicron variant have also been reported in the UK, Israel, Australia, Japan, Thailand and other countries. The reported deaths generally occurred in people who had not been vaccinated or who had comorbidities.
Despite causing only relatively mild symptoms, the Omicron variant is highly contagious. In some countries, the Omicron infection rate is around 400 cases per 100,000 people. This variant evades the immunity provided by double-dose vaccinations but also has a reduced risk of hospitalization and death. Thus, a booster dose is needed.
As of Wednesday (19/1/2022) in Indonesia, of the 208 million people targeted for vaccination, 30 million people still had not been vaccinated and 86.7 million had yet to receive their second dose. In Maluku, West Papua and Papua, first-dose vaccination coverage still remains below 70 percent (Kompas, 20/1/2022). Meanwhile, according to Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin, as of December 2021, 1.12 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines had expired across several provinces, including West Java, Central Java and East Java.
The commitment to Covid-19 control should reach every region. Communication needs to be improved so people are willing to be vaccinated. If necessary, there should be more vaccinators. The government’s various efforts to control the spread of Omicron will remain only as plans if they are not realized. If Covid-19 continues to run rampant, all aspects of life will be affected.
