It was going to happen sooner or later, but the Omicron variant of the coronavirus has been transmitted locally in Indonesia, according to the Health Ministry.
In a virtual press conference today, the ministry’s COVID-19 spokeswoman Siti Nadia Tarmizi said a man from Medan, North Sumatra tested positive for the variant during his trip to Jakarta.
The patient, 27, touched down in Jakarta with his wife on Dec. 6. Nadia highlighted that the pair went to an unnamed restaurant in Jakarta’s SCBD (Sudirman Central Business District) area on Dec. 17.
Prior to their scheduled return to Medan, they both took an antigen test on Dec. 19, which came out positive for the husband. His follow-up PCR test the next day also produced a positive result, and genome sequencing of his sample released on Dec. 26 revealed that he was carrying the Omicron variant of the coronavirus.
The man, who is asymptomatic, has been placed in an isolation ward at a Jakarta hospital. His wife’s test results all came out negative.
Nadia said officials are tracing for possible infections by the patient, with the SCBD restaurant being their starting point. Officials are also looking into the couple’s place of accommodation in Jakarta and other locations they visited.
Indonesia recorded its first Omicron case on Dec. 16. As of Dec. 27, the country has confirmed 47 cases featuring the variant of concern, one of the latest of which is the aforementioned locally transmitted infection.
The overwhelming majority of Omicron cases officially detected in Indonesia are imported cases, with symptoms varying from the non-existent to the mild. Officials say all of the known Omicron patients are in quarantine.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article’s headline implied that the patient got infected at the SCBD restaurant, whereas the official timeline suggests he had already been infected when he visited the restaurant. The headline has been updated to reflect this distinction.
