The Lede: Government swings into action
Transportation Minister under treatment for virus
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As of Tuesday, Indonesia’s official case number of coronavirus sits at 172 but is expected to rise substantially in the weeks ahead. We at Indonesia Intelligencer and Coconuts Jakarta and Coconuts Bali will be working hard to keep you up to date with what you need to know in the weeks ahead.
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Social, but make it distant
Provincial and local governments across the country have taken matters into their own hands following President Jokowi’s address on Sunday calling for the implementation of social distancing measures. Students have been sent home to study online, while tourist sites have shuttered and weddings and other events put on hold.
The powerful Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) has issued a fatwa allowing the faithful to pray from home, rather than crowd the country’s busy mosques. “If one is in an area where the risk of infection is high based on information from relevant authorities, then one can forgo Friday prayers and replace it with dhuhr (midday Islamic prayer) at home,” MUI Fatwa Council Chairman Hasanuddin says. The announcement comes following a massive outbreak in Malaysia related to a mass Muslim gathering at the end of February.
President Jokowi has indicated a full-scale lockdown is not in the near future for the country.
Still, many worry that even with these measures in place the response to a widespread outbreak will be a struggle. Would-be testing patients, including one woman who had been in close contact with a confirmed case, report difficulty in finding testing promptly. Stress on capacity has State-Owned Enterprises (SOE) Minister Erick Thohir thinking of more novel approaches. The Minister has indicated Central Jakarta’s Patra Comfort Hotel, owned by state energy firm Pertamina, will be utilized as an isolation hub.
On the road again
Transportation Minister Budi Karya is reportedly on the mend after testing positive for coronavirus last week. While it’s unknown exactly how the Minister contracted the illness, he has been closely involved in the Diamond Princess cruise ship case. Other ministers and President Jokowi have tested negative.
Class worries
Urban planning expert Yayat Supriatna from Jakarta’s Trisakti University warns that the country will see an explosion in cases if and when lower socio-economic groups are exposed to the virus. "Forty-five per cent of residential areas in Jakarta are slums or densely populated. The poor's ability to prevent (contamination) is minimal, while they cannot afford to see a doctor or go to hospital for a check-up," Yayat told the Straits Times, adding that the government should establish free and pre-emptive testing in some of these areas.
The good doctor?
Health Minister Terawan Agus Putranto could find his leadership a victim of the crisis. A coalition of the country’s top rights groups including watchdog KontraS, Indonesian Legal Aid Institute, Amnesty International Indonesia and the local arm of the Planned Parenthood Association (PKBI), have led the criticism against the minister.
“Terawan has been showing an arrogant and anti-science attitude by playing down the issue since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak. This has resulted in the loss of vigilance among people,” a statement released by the groups on Tuesday said. "We urge President Jokowi to replace the Health Minister with a figure who understands public health, has sensitivity to crises and will guide us through the worst health crisis.”
Prior to the coronavirus outbreak, questions about Terawan’s capacity had been raised. He had been a military doctor and his appointment followed a high number of former military appointees in the cabinet. His appointment was quickly damned by health professionals, citing Terawan’s medical suspension over a controversial ‘treatment’ of stroke patients.
Who’s in, who’s out
Foreigners hailing from Britain, Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland and Vatican City will find themselves turned back after a decision to restrict movement, adding to previous restrictions on Chinese nationals and some South Korean provinces. The Foreign Ministry has also moved to suspend the visa-on-arrival program, meaning visitors to Indonesia will have to obtain visitation visas from embassies abroad.
The Trade Ministry has put the breaks on exports of hand sanitizer, face masks and certain types of medical equipment in anticipation of expected shortages as the crisis deepens. Exporters who do not adhere to the rules, which are in place until the end of June, will face stiff penalties. Bloomberg reports that it follows the announcement of policies to ensure security of food staples and tackle potential hoarding and panic buying in coming weeks.
Recommended reads
Indonesian’s Rupiah’s Freefall May Be About to Get Even Faster (Bloomberg)
With the foreign investors adopting a flight-to-quality approach, even the high real returns on Indonesian sovereign bonds won’t be enough to stop the rush to exit, according to I Made Budhi Purnama Artha, head of treasury at Maybank Indonesia in Jakarta. Bank Indonesia should pump in more dollars to prevent the rupiah from declining further and protect investor confidence, he said.
The rupiah has gone from being Asia’s best performing currency in January to the worst in the past month as a global sell-off sparked by coronavirus concerns deepened. On Tuesday, the currency weakened past 15,000 to a dollar for the first time since the emerging market rout in 2018, raising concerns even a near-record foreign exchange reserve and all-out central bank intervention may fail to ease the turmoil.
Viral: Indonesian newspaper ‘solves’ mystery of missing father on Khong Guan biscuit tin (Coconuts Jakarta)
It looks like the Khong Guan father is quite the workaholic — he is finally sitting at the table with his family only because he had to work from home.
Khong Guan biscuits have been a staple snack for decades in Indonesia. Its tin packaging features an iconic image of a mother sitting at the table enjoying the cookies with her two children, with the notable absence of the father remaining a mystery all these years.
The enigma has been a source of endless debate and countless memes, but a new take from Indonesian newspaper Media Indonesia is both hilarious and serves as a PSA for people to work from home amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Will heat stop the spread of new virus? No one really knows (Associated Press)
“We have to assume that the virus will continue to have the capacity to spread, and it’s a false hope to say yes, it will just disappear in the summertime like influenza,” said Dr. Michael Ryan, the World Health Organization’s emergencies chief.
Dr. Dale Fisher, a senior consultant in infectious diseases at the National University of Singapore, was similarly unconvinced that hot weather would significantly slow its spread.
“Maybe after it’s been around for a few years and most of the world has had it, maybe then it will settle into a more flu-like pattern,” he said. “Since we have no natural immunity to this, we’re all much more vulnerable, no matter what the weather is.”
But Dr. Mohammad Sajadi, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Maryland, thinks weather might play a role. He and colleagues found a striking temperature similarity among regions with sustained outbreaks of COVID-19: between 5 and 11 degrees Celsius (41 and 52 degrees Fahrenheit).