Indonesia extends public mobility restrictions for another week

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- The Indonesian government has decided to extend its four-tiered restrictions on public activities (locally abbreviated as PPKM) on the country's most populated island of Java and the resort spot of Bali as well as a number of provinces outside the two islands for another week.

The decision was announced by President Joko Widodo during a live-streamed briefing on Monday evening.

He said that some regions on Java and Bali, including Greater Jakarta, Bandung (West Java) and Surabaya (East Java), which were previously implementing PPKM Level 4, can now lower their level of the restrictions to Level 3.

"The government has decided that from August 24 to 30, 2021, some regions can lower their level from 4 to 3," Widodo said.

Indonesia has implemented the four-tiered public mobility restrictions in Java and Bali for the past five weeks following the increase in COVID-19 cases from late June to July fueled by the high transmissible Delta variant.

Since last week, the government has started to ease a number of activities in several major cities.

Public places such as shopping malls and restaurants in a number of areas implementing PPKM Level 4 have been allowed to operate with the limited number of visitors and other certain restricted conditions.

In addition, schools in regions implementing PPKM Level 1, 2 and 3 are now allowed to open for face-to-face learning activities.

The president called on the public to remain vigilant, ensuring that the government is struggling to implement the right policies in mitigating this pandemic.

The number of COVID-19 cases in the archipelago on Monday increased to 3.9 million with 127,214 deaths.

To date, at least 32.04 million people in the country have received two shots of vaccines, and the number of those who have been injected with the first doses reached 57.77 million.

The government is targeting to vaccinate 208.2 million people.