Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo warned government officials on Monday to let their guard down, as COVID-19 cases in the country have exceeded 100,000, the highest of all East Asian countries.
Sharp increases have been detected in coronavirus instances since the archipelago country began reopening the economy and public life in June, after 3 months of partial blockades implemented through local governments in parts of the decentralized country.
“Don’t lose your sense of crisis. Health is our priority and it won’t have to be compromised in the least,” he said at a sideboard assembly to talk about the pandemic.
“The purpose is transparent: the mortality rate as much as possible, increasing the cure rate and curbing the spread of new instances as temporarily as possible,” he said.
The President said that special attention should be paid to 8 provinces, which represent 82% of COVID-19 instances in the country, adding the capital, Jakarta, the neighboring city of West Java and East Java. Authorities said the new group was assigned to classic markets, boarding schools, seminars, grocery shopping and offices.
Jokowi urged his ministers to speed up disbursement of COVID-19 stimulus funds totaling 695 trillion rupiah (U.S. $47.7 billion), pointing out that only 19 percent had been spent thus far.
“The absorption of the stimulus budget still leaves much to be desired and the speed has been slow,” he said. “We want to paint fast and make progress.”
Last month, the Manila-based Asian Development Bank predicted that Indonesia’s gross domestic product would contract by 1% by 2020, with an expansion forecast of 2.5% in April.
“Social restrictions are to be strengthened”
Indonesia, the fourth most populous country in the world, which recorded its first case in March, recorded 1,525 new infections in the last 24 hours, bringing the national total to 100,303. Fifty-seven overnight deaths killed 4,838 people, he said.
Worldwide, the number of COVID-19 cases exceeded 16.3 million and only about 650,000 people died Monday, according to disease experts at Johns Hopkins University in the United States.
Tri Yunis Miko Wahyono, an epidemiologist at the University of Indonesia, said the government is confident it can strike the wrong balance between fitness and the economy.
“That’s because if the rate of transmission is desired, they want to strengthen social constraints on a large scale, and that will damage the economy,” BenarNews told.
Even though the government has not absolutely lifted restrictions, many others are acting as if things have returned to normal, Wahyono said.
“It’s a selection the government has made, however, more than 1,000 instances every day is too many, and this country shouldn’t allow others to die because of the intelligence of the economy,” he said.
COVID-19 working group spokesman Wiku Adisasmito said the mortality rate is reduced and daily recovery is almost equal to new cases.
“We are aware that human lives will not have to be overshadowed,” he said.
Earlier this month, another epidemiologist at the University of Indonesia, Pandu Riono, said the government’s failure to comply with physical fitness precautions and poor communication of hazards had contributed to the normal speed of cases.
“Many other people think they are not at risk of COVID-19 and are unaware of fitness protocols,” he told BenarNews.
“The Highest Rate” of Child Deaths
Indonesian Society of Pediatrics President Aman Bhakti said last week that the country had recorded the number of child deaths through COVID-19 among Southeast Asian countries. Neighbors in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand have registered none, Straits Times reported.
“Because the pandemic is not yet over, Indonesia is likely to have the rate of coVID-19 child deaths worldwide,” he said, according to the news website.
The executing organization recorded 48 deaths among young people aged five and younger and 43 among young people aged 6 to 17.
Meanwhile, overcrowded fitness facilities, interrupted food supply chains and COVID-19’s lost source of income can lead to a sharp increase in the number of malnourished youth in Indonesia, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on 30 June. . Even before COVID-19, Indonesia faced high degrees of malnutrition, with more than 2 million young people suffering from severe wasting and more than 7 million young people aged five and under suffered from expansion and development disorders, according to the Array.
“COVID-19 has hit vulnerable families more,” said UNICEF Representative in Indonesia Debora Comini. “Unless we urgently expand prevention and repair facilities for malnourished children, we threaten to build up malnutrition-related diseases and deaths in formative years.”
The medical career has also been greatly affected by the pandemic. The Indonesian Medical Association said at least 68 doctors had died as a result of COVID-19, while the National Nurses Association said at least 39 of its members had lost their lives.