Athletes Infected with COVID-19 in PON Papua; Jakarta Performs Sequencing

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Five Jakarta athletes tested positive for COVID-19 at the National Sports Week or PON Papua. It has not been confirmed yet as a new variant.

Dwi Oktavia, Jakarta Health Agency’s Head of Disease Prevention and Control, said a COVID-19 variant could only be identified after performing genomic sequencing. To date, the genome sequence examination tool is only owned by the central government.

“The samples are already sent for genome sequence examination to find out the virus variants,” said Dwi as quoted by Antara in Jakarta, Tuesday, October 5.

However, she underlined that regardless of the virus variants, the athletes with COVID-19 received the same treatment, viz. self-isolation and intensive care.

Previously, the Coordinator of the Jakarta Contingent Doctors at the 2021 PON Papua, Junaidi, confirmed that five Jakarta athletes were infected with COVID-19. He said they were spread across Jayapura and Timika and did not know the source of virus transmission yet.

Junaidi claimed the Papua Health Agency was also confused about the origin of the virus transmission to the athletes.

“They have been here for a long time, it is impossible for them to be exposed to it (COVID-19) from Jakarta,” he explained.

Junaidi added that based on the COVID-19 PCR results, the athletes obtained a low cycle threshold value (CT Value), worrying it could be because of a new variant.

Read: Indonesian Minister Assures PON Papua Security

ANTARA