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2. Indonesia Extends Ban on Foreigners to End of January

Indonesia is set to extend its ban on foreigners entering the country, as the number of Covid-19 cases more than doubled at the end of last year from 54,000 in November to 110,000 last December.

Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto announced that “President Joko Widodo has approved the extension of the ban on foreigners entering Indonesia,” he said in a press statement at the Presidential Office in Jakarta on Monday, January 11.

Speaking in his capacity as head of the National Economic Recovery and Covid-19 Response Team, Airlangga added that “the present ban, which lasts from January 1-14, will be extended by two weeks to January 28.”

Indonesia initiated the ban at the beginning of 2021 to safeguard the country’s borders, following the discovery of a new variant of the Covid-19 pandemic in Great Britain, which researchers at the country’s University of Birmingham noted has a 70 percent transmission rate.

Source: https://go.kompas.com/read/2021/01/12/001650174/indonesia-extends-ban-on-foreigners-to-end-of-january.