Coronavirus tests at 700 ‘high risk’ wet markets: welcome to West Java’s new normal
- Indonesian province of 50 million people has bucked a nationwide trend that has seen a surge in infections
- Elsewhere in the country, cases have surged since the easing of restrictions
The province, with a population of 50 million, lifted its strict social restrictions last week after bucking a nationwide trend that has seen a surge in infections. While across the country more than 1,000 new cases are now regularly being reported every day, West Java tends to account for fewer than 100 of these and it has kept its infection rate below the key figure of one for the past six weeks. An infection rate of one means that each infected person passes the virus to just one other on average.
The province is now using a combination of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) swab and rapid test kits to test all vendors at its 500 government-owned and 200 privately-owned wet markets. It expects all tests to be completed in the next two weeks.
West Java governor Ridwan Kamil said monitoring traditional markets would be “a priority in the new normal”.
He said such markets were higher risk than shopping malls because they had so many entrances and spilled onto the streets. He added that the province did not have markets “selling bats and other exotic animals”. Some scientists believe the coronavirus originated in either a bat or a pangolin, both of which are sold in some markets elsewhere in the country.