- Indonesia is moving cautiously to reopen its borders to foreign visitors after a disastrous second COVID wave.
- Foreign visitors my be allowed to travel to popular resort island of Bali and other tourist destinations.
- Indonesia’s addition of confirmed COVID-19 cases has dropped by 94.5% since a peak in mid-July
Indonesia’s Coordinating Minister for Maritime and Investment Affairs, Luhut Pandjaitan, announced that the Southeast Asian nation may allow foreign visitors to return to the country in October.
Indonesia is moving cautiously to reopen its borders following a disastrous second COVID-19 wave, flared by the Delta variant of the virus.
But after a sharp slide in COVID-19 cases, foreign tourists may again be able to travel to the world-famous resort island of Bali and other parts of Indonesia popular with overseas visitors.
According to the minister, the addition of confirmed cases of COVID-19 had dropped by 94.5% since a peak in mid-July.
“We are happy today that the reproduction rate is below 1… It is the lowest during the pandemic and is indicating the pandemic is under control,” Luhut said.
Other positive signs included the national hospital bed occupancy rate dropping below 15%, while the positivity rate, or the proportion of people tested who are positive, was at less than 5%, the minister said.
Luhut said if the trend today continued “we are very confident” that Bali could be reopened by October.
Earlier this week, Indonesia’s health minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said that reopening to foreigners also hinged upon 70% of the target population receiving their first COVID-19 shot.
