Emergency PPKM and Acceleration of Vaccination Effectively Control the Covid-19 Pandemic
By: Abdul Gani Aziz
The trend of Covid-19 cases in Indonesia is experiencing a significant increase in the last 4 weeks. This causes the bed occupancy rate (BOR) at the referral hospital to increase. To control the rate of spike in the increase in Covid-19 cases, the government took rapid action, by carrying out a program to strengthen the Emergency PPKM and encouraging the acceleration of the implementation of vaccinations.
Chairman of the Committee for Handling Covid-19 and Economic Recovery (KPCPEN) as well as Coordinating Minister for the Economy Airlangga Hartarto said that seeing the extraordinary spike in positive cases of Covid-19 in Indonesia, President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) requested that the handling of this pandemic be done in two ways, namely the implementing restrictions on emergency community activities (PPKM) and accelerating mass vaccination programs.
Currently, there are many clusters of COVID-19 transmission in the family environment, especially those caused by homecoming, tourism, and eating activities. It can be said that Indonesia is reaping the impact of Lebaran homecoming.
Various options for handling the Covid-19 surge have been carefully considered from various aspects, such as Indonesia’s social, economic, political conditions, and the experiences of other countries. Until finally, the government decided to implement an emergency Community Activity Restriction (PPKM). This policy is the most appropriate policy in controlling the spread of Covid-19 to the village level, without shutting down the people’s economy.
The success of Emergency PPKM in suppressing the spread of Covid-19 is not only the responsibility of the government, but requires the commitment and synergy of all parties to sharpen emergency PPKM. Without commitment and synergy, emergency PPKM policies will not work effectively.
The community has a central role in controlling Covid-19. Awareness of being disciplined in Health Protocol (Prokes) and wisdom in responding to the massive amount of fake news circulating are the most important things. In addition to maintaining immunity from Covid-19, people are also expected to have immunity to deal with fake news.
If emergency PPKM is implemented properly, actions in the field are continuously strengthened, the rate of Covid-19 cases will be controlled. Emergency PPKM must be carried out comprehensively and cannot be sporadic in only a few places.
The vaccination program is the best effort available today, to achieve community immunity in dealing with the pandemic. Therefore, the support and participation of the community in participating in the vaccination program will greatly help control the rate of Covid-19 cases.
As of July 2021, the Government will increase the vaccination target to one million vaccines per day. This target is the government’s hard work that needs to be appreciated in dealing with Covid-19.
In addition, the government has also provided Covid-19 posts in various regions in Indonesia. The Covid-19 post serves as an encouragement to people’s behavior to be disciplined in wearing masks, maintaining distance, and washing hands (3M). 3M’s discipline is the key in strengthening the implementation of testing, tracing, and treatment (3T) down to the village level.
Because all components of society support the emergency PPKM strengthening program and accelerate vaccination in order to control the spike in Covid-19 cases. With this support, it is hoped that there will be a spirit of togetherness from all elements of society in efforts to control the Covid-19 pandemic, not only at the beginning of the implementation but onwards so that Covid-19 cases can be suppressed, and handling at the national level can improve significantly.
(Observer of Social, Political and Economic Issues)
