WHO warns of fresh Indonesia surge fed by virus variants

Indonesia’s president has ordered authorities to speed up the country’s vaccination campaign, while World Health Organization is warning of the need to increase social restrictions in the country

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Indonesia’s president ordered authorities to speed up the country's vaccination campaign as the World Health Organization warned Thursday of the need to increase social restrictions in the country amid a fresh surge of coronavirus infections caused by worrisome variants. “We need vaccination acceleration in order to achieve communal immunity, which we hope can stop the COVID-19 spread,” President Joko Widodo said in a remarks while visiting a vaccination center just outside the capital, Jakarta. Widodo said he ordered his cabinet ministers and local governments to increase the number of people vaccinated each day to 1 million by next month. He said Indonesia is currently vaccinating half a million people a day. Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous country, aims to inoculate more than 181 million of its 270 million people by March 2022, but authorities have only fully vaccinated 11.8 million people and partially vaccinated another 9.6 million others.