Indonesia has recorded its first Omicron case, after a janitor at the Wisma Atlet Kemayoran COVID-19 quarantine facility in Jakarta tested positive with the coronavirus variant.
Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin announced the news at a press conference this morning.
“This person is asymptomatic and is in good shape. No coughing, no fever,” Budi said.
The patient, identified by the initial N, was among Wisma Atlet staff who underwent routine PCR testing on Dec. 8. Three janitors, including N, tested positive for COVID-19, and their samples were sent for genome sequence analysis on Dec. 10.
On Dec. 15, the results showed that N carried the Omicron variant, while the other two janitors did not.
The Wisma Atlet quarantine facility notably houses Indonesian citizens arriving from abroad. The Health Ministry has not yet determined who spread Omicron to the janitor, nor does it know the true extent of Omicron’s spread in the country.
Indonesia responded to the global Omicron scare in late November by shutting its border to 11 countries and territories with known cases involving the mutated virus. Most of these countries are in Africa, and Indonesia did not ban arrivals from other countries with Omicron cases, such as those in Europe, the US, and Australia, despite the variant having spread throughout the globe.
Indonesia also lengthened mandatory quarantine for international arrivals, including Indonesians returning from abroad.
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