Photographer: Anadolu Agency / Getty Images
Photographer: Anadolu Agency / Getty Images
President Joko Widodo will be vaccinated against the corona virus on January 13, which would kick off Indonesia’s vaccination program.
Jokowi, as he is commonly known, will receive the shots along with representatives from the public and the military as a way to build confidence in the vaccine, said Heru Budi Hartono, head of the presidential secretariat. The event will be televised for people to witness, he added.
China is struggling to make the world rely on its vaccines
Indonesia is trying to start the vaccination program as soon as possible as it grapples with the largest coronavirus outbreak in Southeast Asia, with more than 770,000 confirmed cases to date.
China’s Sinovac Biotech Ltd. shipped 3 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines to the country. Now the government is waiting for the local food and drug regulator to issue an emergency permit to use the shots to begin inoculating the population, aiming to reach 181.5 million people by March 2022 . Jokowi has called on the cabinet to further shorten that timeline.
Even before the regulator’s approval, the government has started to distribute the vaccines to the 34 provinces across the world’s largest archipelago.
(Updates with more details everywhere.)