JAKARTA, April 9 (Jakarta Post/ANN): The Indonesian government has announced extended Aidil Fitri leave days for this year and vowed to ramp up the rollout of booster shots across the country as it seeks to strike a balance between lifting mobility restrictions while also limiting the risk of rising Covid19 cases during the festive period.
The move came as restrictions on many activities during the holy month of Ramadan in the country were eased, with worshipers now allowed to hold congregational tarawih (Ramadan evening prayer) and gather to pray in mosques.
The government also allowed people to go back to their hometowns during the Idul Fitri holiday, a tradition known as mudik (exodus), marking the first time it has officially eased restrictions on holiday festivities in the last two years.
President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo announced on Wednesday that May 2 and 3 were officially national Idul Fitri holidays, in addition to mandatory collective leave days on April 29 and May 4 to 6, and called on the public to observe health protocols when they gathered with families and friends.
The holiday arrangement means that many offices across the country will be closed for the first week of May.
The collective leave announced this year was also longer than that of last year, which only saw one day of mandatory collective leave during the Idul Fitri holiday.
"The [extended] collective leave could be used to meet with parents, families and friends back home, but I need to stress that the pandemic is far from over,” Jokowi said on Wednesday, urging those who have yet to get a Covid-19 booster shot to get one before making the trip.
He added that the government would work hard to ensure that people could travel safely for mudik and called on the public to continue implementing health protocols and wearing masks in public areas or in crowds.
The government expects 85 million people to go on mudik during the Aidil Fitri period, with some 14 million travelers are set to leave Greater Jakarta.
The latest figure is 6 million higher than the previous estimate of around 79 million people.
Speaking after a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Coordinating Human Development and Culture Minister Muhadjir Effendy said the government would ramp up the rollout of the second and booster dose of Covid-19 vaccines, as the President had instructed ministers to ensure that mudik would not create the “unnecessary risk” of increased Covid-19 cases after the holiday.
“We call on people who have made up their mind to go on mudik to immediately get vaccinated, particularly to get the booster shot for those who have received two vaccine doses,” said Muhadjir.
The government will set up vaccination centers at mosques, particularly in areas where travelers are expected to depart, such as in Greater Jakarta, West Java and Central Java, to help accelerate the inoculation drive, said Muhadjir.
According to a circular issued by the National Covid-19 task force, homebound travelers who have received a booster shot are not required to present a negative Covid-19 test for their journey.
Meanwhile, those who have received a booster shot are not required to present a negative rapid antigen or polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test result.
Separately, Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said he was optimistic that this year’s Idul Fitri holiday would not be followed by a spike in coronavirus cases, as long as there were no new variants, which he said was the more likely factor behind an increase in Covid-19 cases.
"We have observed that the cause of a spike in Covid-19 cases is not the Idul Fitri holiday [itself], but rather a new variant. So far, there are no new variants [the country] needs to be worried about,” Budi said during a webinar on Wednesday.
“I am confident that there will be no case spikes [following the Idul Fitri holiday], but we have to pray that there will be no new variants." Budi said the most recent coronavirus variant detected in the country was the BA.2 variant, a subvariant of the Omicron strain.
While the subvariant has caused an uptick in cases in some European and Asian countries, Indonesia has yet to see a similar increase so far. - The Jakarta Post/ANN
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