Indonesia removes mandatory quarantine for fully vaccinated int'l visitors

JAKARTA. KAZINFORM Indonesian President Joko Widodo announced on Wednesday that fully vaccinated international visitors are no longer required to undergo quarantine amid a decrease in COVID-19 cases in the Southeast Asian country.

International travelers are now only required to show negative PCR test results upon arrival, he added, Xinhua reports.

«If the PCR test result is negative, they can come out of the airport immediately and carry out activities,» the president said in a statement.

The country's Minister of Health Budi Gunadi Sadikin told the parliament earlier that the number of imported COVID-19 cases is currently relatively much lower than that of domestically transmitted cases, making the mandatory quarantine for arriving visitors no longer necessary.

The number of COVID-19 infections is declining in Indonesia. Health authorities on Wednesday confirmed 6,376 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total tally to 5.98 million, with the death toll from the coronavirus rising by 159 to 154,221.

As the Indonesian government is accelerating its national vaccination programs to curb the spread of the virus, over 195.22 million people in the country have received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, while over 156.13 million have taken their second dose.