106 nurses among Covid-19 fatalities

JAKARTA: Over 100 nurses were among the 9,495 Covid-19 fatalities in Indonesia’s East Java province since the pandemic struck last year.

These nurses, at the frontline of the virus fight, were extremely dedicated, said East Java Governor Khofifah Indar Parawansa in an Antara News agency report.

“We extend our deepest condolences over the deaths of our 106 nurses who got infected while serving Covid-19 patients,” she said on Tuesday, after attending an event to mark the anniversary of the Indonesian Nurses Association.

The governor added that the pandemic has been a struggle with an extraordinary sacrifice, where nurses in East Java have shown their high dedication.

She said the provincial government has enforced micro-scale public activity restrictions (PPKM Mikro) in order to bring down the Covid-19 infection rate in East Java.

The enforcement of this prevention policy has significantly reduced East Java’s infection rate and the province no longer has red zones (areas with high infection risk), she stated.

Due to its effectiveness, the provincial administration extended the PPKM Mikro policy to March 22.

The central and regional governments of Indonesia have been working on reducing the country’s transmission rate, where integrated efforts involving the Health Ministry, the national police and the Indonesian military were carried out on vaccinations and contact tracing at the grassroots level.

To curb infections, the central government enforced restrictions on public activity in the islands of Java and Bali since Jan 11.

The nationwide vaccination programme, which commenced on Jan 13, is expected to take 15 months to innoculate around 181.5 million people.

To attain herd immunity, VicePresident Ma’ruf Amin had stressed the need to successfully administer the Covid-19 vaccine to the targeted population.