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Highlights
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Indonesia has one of the highest numbers of COVID-19 cases in Southeast Asia. Children under 18 years of age make up 13.8 per cent of confirmed cases and 1.2 per cent of deaths.
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Following the revision of the school opening regulations in April 2022, all schools (590,000) were required to conduct face-to-face learning from the new school year in mid-July 2022, whilst maintaining COVID-19 safety protocols. Class capacity arrangements are decided by each school, ranging from 50 per cent to 100 per cent, depending on context.
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UNICEF continuously supported the Government of Indonesia with COVID-19 vaccine deployment activities at the national level and across all 34 provinces, including targeting priority groups such as teachers and the elderly. The government continues vaccinating children between 6 and 17 years of age. With the start of the booster vaccination programme in late 2021, by December 2022, over 68.7 million people had received their third dose.
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Over 4,972 health workers and volunteers have been equipped with interpersonal communication (IPC) skills to encourage communities to practice COVID-19 prevention behaviours, participate in COVID-19 vaccinations and routine immunizations, and to identify and respond correctly to hoaxes and misinformation. Just over 828,300 people were engaged in Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE) education sessions facilitated by RCCE specialists and volunteers.
Situation Overview
By the end of December 2022, a total of 6,719,815 COVID-19 cases had been confirmed in Indonesia. Following a slight increase in mid-June, the number of COVID-19 cases continued to decrease in the fourth quarter of the year due to a variety of public health measures and epidemiological factors. In the last quarter of 2022, the number of people hospitalized continued to decline and the nationwide test positivity proportion declined to 4.8 per cent in December. At the same time, however, the testing rate remained below the benchmark of one person tested per 1,000 population per week.
As of 1 August 2022, all schools were conducting face-to-face learning for the start of the new school year for 2022/23. In the reporting period, class capacity was at 100 per cent.
Schools were required to apply COVID-19 safety protocols to facilitate the return to face-to-face learning. With UNICEF's support, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology (MoECRT) continued improving data exchange and accuracy on teacher vaccinations. Teacher vaccination figures have improved significantly over the last 23 months.
As of 12 October 2022, 3.77 million teachers had received their first dose (96 per cent of 3.84 million), 1.83 million teachers had received their second dose (48 per cent of 3.84 million), and 1.61 million had received their third dose (42 per cent of 3.84 million).
In October 2022, the Ministry of Health (MoH) and the Centre for Reproductive Health – Gadjah Mada University launched the result of the first-ever National Survey on Adolescent Mental Health (I-NAMS). The study revealed that 5.5 per cent of Indonesian adolescents between the age of 10 and 17 (about 2.5 million people), have mental disorders, and about 5 per cent experienced more mental health problems during the pandemic.
The MoH released Decree No. HK01.07/Menkes/1928/2022 on National Guidance on Management of Stunting for medical doctors. The decree explains the importance of prevention and early detection of stunted children. This included standardization of anthropometric measurement for all children under five.
Ministry of Finance (MoF), UNICEF with PROSPERA, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the SMERU Research Institute launched the second survey report on the socioeconomic impact of COVID-19 on households in December.
One of the findings highlighted household access to social assistance: one in three households in the bottom 40 per cent did not receive any cash assistance in 2022, including poor households with children (32 per cent).
On 21 November 2022, a 5.6 magnitude earthquake hit the Cianjur District of West Java, killing 338 people, including up to 125 children and displacing more than 114 thousand people in the affected areas. According to the damage assessment results, more than 56 thousand houses, 701 schools and 18 health facilities were damaged along with other critical infrastructure. The Government of Indonesia at the district level with the support of the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) and other line ministries led the emergency response to address the needs of shelter, clean water, medical care and protection and other challenges facing children and communities. UNICEF and partners supported these efforts to help determine the most pressing needs of children and their families.
COVID-19 vaccine update
In 2021, the Government of Indonesia launched an ambitious campaign to vaccinate 234.6 million people, including children aged between 6 and 17 years of age. As of the end of December 2022, more than 204 million people had received their first dose, including over 47.2 million children. A further 174.7 million people, including 39.9 million children, were fully vaccinated with two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.
All health workers, 1.47 million, have received two doses of the vaccine plus a third booster shot. Over 815,300 (55.5 per cent) of health workers have already been vaccinated with a fourth booster shot. Of the target of 21.5 million older persons, only 15.2 million (70.5 per cent) have received both doses and 7.2 million (33.4 per cent) and 378,000 people (1.7 per cent) have received third and fourth booster shots respectively.
By December 2022, Indonesia had received more than 110 million COVID-19 doses through the COVAX Facility.