October 7, 2022
JAKARTA – Despite the pledge from President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo that the government would start relaxing COVID-19 restrictions, the Home Affairs Ministry has decided to implement the lowest level of public activity restrictions (PPKM) until early November.
In a ministerial instruction signed by Home Affairs Minister Tito Karnavian, the ministry decided to keep the PPKM after considering “the level of community transmission” as well as the “socioeconomic condition” of the population.
In the instruction, Tito also ordered local government leaders to expedite the delivery of social assistance to people affected by the economic impact of COVID-induced mobility curbs.
“If there’s a shortfall in budget, then local governments could reallocate funding from sectors deemed not too essential,” Tito said.
In a speech delivered on Monday, President Jokowi said that he was likely to declare the COVID-19 pandemic over very soon.
“The pandemic is beginning to ease off. Perhaps very soon we will have to declare it over,” Jokowi said in a speech delivered during an event for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises.
In the past few months, the COVID-19 situation in the country has been steadily improving.
Active cases have been trending downward since early September, when active cases were at around 42,000. The country reported some 16,200 active cases on Monday.
The government has largely attributed the improvements to high inoculation coverage among the public. So far almost 73 percent of Indonesia’s 234.6 million targeted population have been vaccinated and some 27 percent have received a third shot.