VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

The implementation of Community Activity Restrictions (PPKM) which is continuously carried out and evaluated by the government every week has brought about positive impacts. The number of active Covid-19 cases remains under control and continues to improve. The reproduction number (Rt) of Indonesia and Java-Bali is also still below one which indicates that the Covid-19 pandemic is under control. In addition, based on epidemiological reports, the death rate from Covid-19 has now decreased dramatically. In fact, the current number of funerals is equivalent to the number of funerals prior to the pandemic. This was revealed by Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment, concurrently Coordinator for the Implementation of the Java-Bali Community Activity Restrictions (PPKM), Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan in an online press conference monitored in Jakarta, Monday (8/11).

However, on the same occasion, he also disclosed that there was an increasing trend of Covid-19 cases, especially in 43 districts/cities in the Java-Bali region, including in Jakarta. Over the last few months, the number of active cases of Covid-19 has continued to decline to 99 percent, which peaked last July. The news about the upward trend in the number of cases was certainly worrying at the time.

Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan further explained in a limited meeting that President Joko Widodo urged all parties to learn from the experiences of European countries. A number of countries in Europe have experienced a large daily spike in cases due to people's negligence in implementing health protocols.

How is the behavior of the Indonesian people according to the observation of the COVID-19 Handling Task Force? Minister Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan said that last week, his side sent a team to observe the implementation of health protocols in a number of tourism destinations in Bali and Bandung, West Java. Visitors to malls and tourism attractions have been monitored for implementing health protocols properly, in this case wearing masks. However, keeping distance is still weak, especially in tourism attractions. It's even been found that some bars and clubs violated the rules of opening hours and the number of visitors.

Based on these observations, the government can immediately make an evaluation. It is time for stricter action to be taken against violators of the health protocols, especially the management of entertainment and tourism venues. If there is no decisive action, Indonesia can experience another spike in Covid-19 cases and this time, it is worried that the government will face it with increasingly limited resources.