‘Improve safety measures’

The government needs to expand its surveillance capacity in order to detect and swiftly contain the spread of the Omicron Covid-19 variant, which the World Health Organisation recently named as a variant of concern, experts said.

Indonesia has so far tightened its borders in response to the B.1.1.529 variant, which was first reported to the WHO from South Africa on Nov 24 and was officially listed as a variant of concern two days later, joining an increasing list of countries that have made similar moves to prevent the spread of the new variant in their territories.