Indonesia's president ordered authorities to speed up the country's vaccination campaign as the World Health Organization warned Thursday of the need to increase social restrictions in the country amid a fresh surge of coronavirus infections caused by worrisome variants.
"We need vaccination acceleration in order to achieve communal immunity, which we hope can stop the COVID-19 spread," President Joko Widodo said in a remarks while visiting a vaccination center just outside the capital, Jakarta.
National COVID-19 task force spokesman Wiku Adisasmito said the slow progress can be put down to limited global vaccine supply, the unpreparedness of the national health system and vaccine hesitancy. The government has received 92.2 million vaccine doses so far. The WHO in its situation report Thursday noted that Indonesia's drastic increase in bed occupancy rates is a major concern and necessitates in the implementation of stricter public health and social measures, including large-scale social restrictions.
Indonesian health officials say they've detected the Delta variant in Jakarta, Central Java and East Java provinces. They say they have spotted three of the four variants of concern flagged by the WHO.
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