TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Home Affairs Minister Tito Karnavian has urged the Central Sulawesi provincial government to improve COVID-19 data management so that COVID-19 handling can be optimized.

"I also said several things regarding data collection in several other regions that were not quite right, so the data inputted was wrong," he said during a working visit to Palu on September 24-25, 2021.

Some regions reported the COVID-19 situation incorrectly, thus the determination of the level for community activity restrictions became erroneous, he added.

"I know, for example, in Poso city, the number of cases may not be too many but the positivity rate is high, the number of cases is high. Do I have the PCR (test results) there? There's no PCR there. So the number of testing is low, if 10 people are tested and five show positive, the positive rate is mentioned as 50 percent. If it's 50 percent, the central (government) deems it as dangerous, since 50 percent of the population is positive (for COVID-19), then it must be Level four, " he elaborated.

In terms of data inputs, several regions provided data that were supposedly from a few weeks earlier, he informed.

"Several regions should have reported the data of that week because it determines the level for community activity restrictions based on the data of the same week. Do not include data that has come from three or four weeks ago," he reiterated.

"If it has been 21 days, there are only two possibilities: (either the patients) recovered or died. So the data needs to be erased after 21 days and reported as case data," he added.

Karnavian stressed that the data must be the actual data of that week so that policy-making can be better.

While handling COVID-19 spread in Central Sulawesi, priority should be given to densely populated areas, such as Palu, Luwuk Banggai, Donggala, Tolitoli, and Poso, he said.

He urged local governments to push vaccinations in each region to build herd immunity against COVID-19.

"The head of the Health Office should analyze the number of COVID-19 patients who died in which area, what age group, then prioritize the vaccination program for them, so that the death rate declines," he added.

Read: Indonesia's COVID-19 Handling among the Best in the World

ANTARA