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Jakarta braces for impending ‘battle’ with Omicron
Senior minister Luhut Pandjaitan has said that the impending third wave of infections in Jakarta looks likely to peak sometime between the end of February and early March.
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A woman receives a booster dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine in Jakarta on Jan. 12, 2022. (AFP/Adek Berry)
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akartans are being called upon to be more vigilant and consider once again the possibility of working from home, after authorities flagged the city as the “first battleground” in the fight against the Omicron COVID-19 strain, amid worrying predictions of a third infection wave in the coming weeks.
The capital, which is at the center of the Greater Jakarta megalopolis, is home to some 12 million people and hosts millions more commuters from a handful of satellite cities around it, making it a nightmare for city administrators looking to curb the spread of a highly contagious variant.
It is also the main gateway for international arrivals to the country, and has had its fair share of experiences being the epicenter of outbreaks earlier on in the pandemic.
Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said on Sunday that Jakarta would become the first region in the country to feel the full impact of the Omicron outbreak, as the number of cases of local transmission slowly catches up with the sum of imported cases quarantined at the point of entry.
As a result, the government would pay special attention to COVID-19 mitigation in the capital, considering the share of new COVID-19 cases being recorded there.
“Currently 90 percent of all local COVID-19 infections have occurred in Jakarta. This is in contrast to last week, when imported cases dominated transmission in the capital,” Budi said in a press conference on Sunday.
Read also: Indonesia reports over 1,000 daily COVID-19 cases Saturday, highest in 3 months
