International passengers are subject to a seven-day quarantine in Indonesia

To prepare for the entry of Omicron variant, Indonesia has extended the COVID-19 quarantine period for international and Indonesian visitors coming in the country from three days to one week (B.1.1.529).

Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, the Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment, announced the Indonesian government's decision to change the COVID-19 quarantine period for overseas tourists on Sunday.

Foreign nationals who visited South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Mozambique, Eswatini, Malawi, Angola, Zambia, or Hong Kong (China) in the previous 14 days will be barred entrance, he added.

Pandjaitan, who is also deputy head of the National Economic and COVID-19 Recovery Committee, said the number of nations affected by Indonesia's temporary entrance ban would be assessed on a regular basis (KPC-PEN).

Indonesians who return home after visiting one of the countries affected by the temporary entrance ban would be confined for 14 days, he said.

According to him, the new COVID-19 quarantine period for foreign nationals and Indonesian citizens coming in Indonesia from overseas would have begun one minute after midnight on November 29, 2021.

He also stated that the Health Ministry would increase COVID-19 genome sequencing in order to find the Omicron variation.

Meanwhile, Siti Nadia Tarmizi, the ministry's spokesperson for COVID-19 vaccination, previously stated that the Indonesian government has continued to monitor the new viral strain using whole genome sequencing (WGS) study.

"The new variation has not been found in Indonesia yet," she said.

According to a paper published by the World Health Organization (WHO), the Omicron form can spread swiftly, readily cause COVID-19 reinfection, and impair vaccine efficacy.

Tjandra Yoga Aditama, a lung expert at the University of Indonesia's Faculty of Medicine, believes that international passengers should be quarantined for one or two weeks after arriving in Indonesia.