Jakarta, Jun 22 (IANS): The Indonesian government has decided to tightened the micro-scale restrictions and extended them from Tuesday onwards to July 5 amidst the an ongoing rsurgence of Covid-19 transmission, an official said.
Offices located in red zones will be allowed to hold a maximum of 25 percent of employees, and those in other zones are permitted to hold a maximum of 50 per cent of staff, Airlangga Hartarto, chief of the Covid-19 Handling and National Economic Recovery Committee, announced on Monday.
According to the regulation, public areas such as markets, shopping centres, restaurants and cafes in red zones are allowed to operate until 8 p.m. with a maximum of 25 per cent of visitors, while groceries, pharmacies, and important sectors can operate fully, reports Xinhua news agency.
Art and culture centres and places of worship in red zones are completely closed, while those in other zones are allowed to operate with a maximum of 25 perc ent of the visitor capacity.
Amid surging cases, the government is working to ramp up vaccination, aiming to increase the daily number of inoculations to 700,000 in June and 1 million in July.
Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said the current capacity has reached 716,000 per day, and the number would rise to 1 million daily in early July.
Indonesia is facing a rapid increase in the number of Covid-19 cases with the detection of the more contagious "variants of concern" such as Alpha, Beta, and Delta variants.
"Currently the government is strengthening efforts to solve upstream problems, and prevent people from getting sick by limiting their movement by 75 to 100 per cent," said Sadikin.
To solve downstream problems, the government is also supplying more stocks of PPE (personal protective equipment) and medicines, as well as increasing the bed capacity at a number of Covid treatment centres.
Hartarto said the current hospital bed occupancy rate in 87 districts and cities in 29 provinces stood above 70 per cent.
The country has so far reported 2,004,445 Covid cases and 54,956 deaths.