Indonesia bans tourist arrivals through Jakarta Airport amid Covid spike
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Indonesia bans foreign tourists from entering the country through Jakarta's international airport as Covid infections spike, driven by the Omicron variant.
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Indonesia's Soekarno-Hata International Airport
Indonesia, which is currently seeing a spike in COVID-19 infections, has temporarily banned foreign tourists from entering the country through Jakarta's Soekarno-Hata International Airport.
The country has seen a large increase in cases amid the spread of the Omicron variant, as more than 36,000 infections were recorded on Sunday, and hospitals registered a bed occupancy rate of 63% in the capital.
While Jakarta has barred tourists from coming in through the airport, Bali has just recently welcomed the first international flight carrying foreign visitors in nearly two years.
Tourists will thus still be able to come through Bali, as well as Batam and Tanjung Pinang in the Riau Islands near Singapore.
A 12 am to 4 am curfew was also set in place by police in Jakarta.
Too early to declare victory of COVID: WHO warns
On February first, the World Health Organization (WHO) chief warned it was too early for countries to either declare victory over COVID-19 or give up attempts to curb infections.
"It is premature for any country to either surrender or to declare victory," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters, adding that the virus was too dangerous and "it continues to evolve before our very eyes."
Terdos' words came in light of Denmark becoming the first country to lift all domestic policies to limit the spread of COVID-19 despite the record numbers of cases of the Omicron variant. Several other countries are also considering following in Copenhagen's footsteps.
The WHO chief highlighted that 90 million COVID-19 cases have been reported to the UN's health agency since Omicron was first detected in southern Africa - more cases than in all of 2020.
Though one of the characteristics of the new COVID variants is that it is milder than its predecessors, Tedros emphasized that "we are now starting to see a very worrying increase in deaths in most regions of the world."
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