Coronavirus Indonesia: can Jakarta get its raging Covid-19 outbreak under control?
- The stakes are high for the capital city of 10 million people, which indirectly contributes to about 60 per cent of the country’s economy
- Experts say Indonesia, which has the highest death toll in Southeast Asia, is still in its first wave of infections despite earlier social-distancing restrictions
Under the stricter regulations, known locally by the acronym PSBB, most workplaces have to keep the bulk of their employees at home, and while shopping centres can remain open, no dining in is allowed. Residents caught outside without masks will be tasked with social work or receive a fine that starts from 250,000 rupiah.
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“Do not extend it again – pity those from the lower middle class,” said the 38-year-old father of two, adding that he had already borrowed money from his neighbours to get by.
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Some 10 million people live in overcrowded Jakarta, a figure that goes up to 30 million when the metropolitan area surrounding the city is included. With a quarter of all cases in Indonesia, it is the epicentre of the Covid-19 outbreak across the sprawling archipelago’s 34 provinces.
While other countries have managed to slow the spread of infections with partial lockdowns – only to see a resurgence in cases when they reopened – Indonesia has not yet passed the peak of the first wave, according to Mahesa Paranadipa Maikel, the chairperson of the Indonesia Health Law Society, an industry body of medical workers and legal experts.
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“The reasons range from half-hearted implementation of policies by the central and local governments [to] public figures and officials not following health protocols. So the community is apathetic too,” Mahesa said.
The raging outbreak has strained Jakarta’s health care system – the city administration earlier this month said isolation rooms at 67 Covid-19 referral hospitals were 77 per cent occupied, while intensive care units were 83 per cent full.
Indonesia’s health ministry has confirmed there were 302 infections among its staff as of last Friday, the largest cluster in the capital, while religious affairs minister Fachrul Razi and the country’s former ambassador to the United States, Dino Patti Djalal, have also tested positive. Jakarta city administration secretary Saefullah last week became the latest senior official to die of the disease.
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With unemployment expected to rise to 12.7 million next year, the government has set aside 695.2 trillion rupiah for health care and economic stimulus for households.
Civil servant Anton Febriawan, who works as a public relations officer at a financial institution, said government departments were only allowed to have 25 per cent of staff in the office at a given time. He is working from his home in Bogor, some 55km south of Jakarta, but colleagues working in IT or at counters to serve the public have been going to the office.
“Jakartans became less disciplined when the restrictions were relaxed,” Anton said.
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Amid calls for health minister Terawan Agus Putranto to step down, Widodo has instructed his trusted aide Luhut Pandjaitan, the coordinating minister for maritime affairs and investment, to get the situation in nine of the hardest-hit provinces – including the capital – under control in two weeks. Police and military personnel have been deployed around Jakarta to ensure people and businesses comply with health protocols.
In light of reports that the city’s poor cannot afford to self-isolate in their tiny living quarters if a family member is ill, the government said it would partner with at least 30 two- and three-star hotels to quarantine asymptomatic patients. But not all experts are convinced that the new round of social-distancing measures will ease the dire hospital-bed situation.
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Dicky Budiman, a researcher pursuing his doctorate in global health security and pandemics at Griffith University in Australia, pointed to statistics from the Jakarta administration showing that as of Monday, almost 13 per cent of residents had tested positive for Covid-19. Restrictions should ideally be enforced for two to three months if that rate was above 10 per cent, he said.
“The PSBB should also be implemented in all of Java as a worst-case scenario,” he said, referring to the country’s most populous island, where Jakarta is located, and referencing the way travel to and from the capital had exacerbated the rise in infections.
As of Monday, Indonesia has tested 1.74 million of its population of 270 million, or six out of every 1,000 people. The Philippines, by comparison, has tested around 29 people per 1,000 population, while Singapore has tested 155 out of every 1,000.
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The country is actively involved in the search for a vaccine. Widodo has tasked local universities with its development, while state-owned drug maker Bio Farma has tied up with Chinese state-owned drug maker Sinovac to get at least 50 million doses of its vaccine by next March. Vaccine trials involving thousands of Indonesians have taken place in the city of Bandung.
While Indonesia remains closed to tourists, it has restarted official and business travel with the United Arab Emirates, South Korea and China. Last month, it also began talks with Singapore for a travel corridor; Widodo has called for it to happen as soon as possible given the city state is a top source of foreign direct investment.
Yose Rizal Damuri, head of the economics department at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Jakarta, said it was imperative that the city contained its Covid-19 outbreak as it directly and indirectly contributed to about 60 per cent of Indonesia’s economy.
“Without a controlled pandemic, activity and demand will not increase,” he added. “There will be no business expansion and also people will save more than they spend.”
Alphonzus Widjaja, chairperson of the Indonesia Shopping Centre Management Association, said mall traffic had nosedived in recent months, adding that he predicted lay-offs were imminent.
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Under the current PSBB, he expected shopping centres in Jakarta’s central business district – including areas such as Thamrin, Sudirman and Senayan – to see at most 20 per cent of their pre-pandemic visitors, while establishments further out might see 30 per cent.
Before the pandemic, Alphonzus said, each of the 82 shopping centres in his association could report monthly transaction values of 150 billion rupiah, but this would fall given the lower foot traffic.
Yose of the CSIS said household consumption – which makes up about 57 per cent of GDP – would decline given the poor economic sentiment, adding that a recovery was uncertain but social discontent was likely to grow.
“This is also very risky for other social problems,” he said. “Crimes, or maybe even [unrest] on a larger scale … if confidence in the economy continues to decline.”
