TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said the categorization of the COVID-19 handling carried out by regions was not a performance assessment. Budi said this in response to the statement of Deputy Health Minister Dante Saksono that Jakarta was in the E category or the lowest grade.

“This risk indicator, I emphasize, is not an assessment of a region’s performance, either provinces, districts, and cities,” said Budi in a press conference on Friday, May 28, 2021.

Budi explained that data presented in the meeting with the House of Representatives (DPR) were risk indicators in accordance with the latest WHO guidelines, which were used as an internal analysis of the Health Ministry to review the government’s preparation in dealing with the spike in COVID-19 cases after Eid holidays.

The guidelines were only discussed by the ministry about four weeks ago, he informed. “We are still studying how to apply it and conducting simulations in several regions,” Budi added.

Budi further asserted that the risk indicators aimed to review the virus transmission rate and how the government responded to it, as well as its response capacity.

“We are still exploring whether there are other factors that must be observed based on previous experiences in order to improve the response or policy intervention that we can apply to contain the pandemic,” he reiterated.

Deputy Health Minister Dante Saksono previously said several regions were in the D and E categories in controlling COVID-19 cases. He mentioned that Jakarta was in the worst category due to its rising hospital bed occupancy rate (BOR) and poor case tracing.

Read: Health Ministy Gears Up for Possible COVID-19 Surge after Eid Holidays

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