TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Jakarta Deputy Governor Ahmad Riza Patria on Friday urged social media celebrities or "influencers" to avert conducting offline and online events that could potentially offend a group of people who were on the frontline of the COVID-19 pandemic: healthcare workers.

His statement came as a response to an influencer who claimed to have received a vaccine booster or third injection of COVID-19 vaccine dose. The deputy governor insisted that booster injections were prioritized for healthcare workers.

“We will check the validity of this information suggesting an influencer has received a third vaccine injection,” said Riza Patria in his personal Instagram account @arizapatria on July 30.

On Wednesday, July 28, a female Instagram celebrity went viral after claiming she had received a third Moderna booster injection, which unsurprisingly garnered the attention from health workers. To date, there are only five percent of the total 1.47 million healthcare workers who have received their booster shots.

Indonesia’s vaccination rate is still considered low in the global standard as Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, July 28 that Indonesia's total vaccination rate only amounted to 11.9 percent. This in turn placed Indonesia in the 53rd position among countries with the worst COVID-19 resilience.

Read: Jakarta DPRD Clarifies Issue on Third COVID-19 Vaccine Shots at DPRD Building

ZEFANYA APRILIA