VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

For West Java Governor Ridwan Kamil, the consequences of letting people go to their hometowns during a pandemic are real. The governor posted on his Facebook wall on Thursday a news story about a 72-year-old stroke patient from Ciamis who tested positive for COVID-19 after having contact with his child from virus-stricken Jakarta.

“This story is one of many cases of parents in West Java who are COVID-19 positive after being visited by their children or relatives, who are unaware that they are carrying the virus to their hometowns,” he said. “Restrain yourselves and love your parents. Don’t go home now,” he pleaded.

The post is just another sign of growing apprehension among regional leaders over a possible explosion of coronavirus cases in their respective areas as millions of people from Greater Jakarta — largely deprived of their livelihood due to large-scale physical distancing policies — are set to travel to their hometowns for Idul Fitri early.

The central government still lacks a clear strategy on preventing that. Just hours before Ridwan made his plea, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo announced that he would not officially ban people from traveling for the Idul Fitri holidays, ignoring warnings from public health experts that the consequences of failing to prevent people from leaving Jakarta, the epicenter of the outbreak in the country, could be dire.  

Annually, some 20 million people from Greater Jakarta travel to their hometowns to celebrate Idul Fitri in a tradition called mudik (exodus). The tradition, public health experts say, could lead to massive COVID-19 contagion on Java, an island of 141 million people, where many regions have far worse healthcare systems than Jakarta.

“[The President] underlines that there is no official ban on people going on the mudik during the 2020 Idul Fitri holiday period. The travelers, however, must self-isolate for 14 days, will be given ‘people under observation’ [ODP] status, as per the World Health Organization health protocol, and will be monitored by the respective local administration,” presidential spokesman Fadjroel Rachman said in a statement on Thursday, shortly after a speech by the President on the matter.

State Secretary Pratikno, however, later clarified Fadjroel’s statement, saying that the President actually called on people to stay in the capital, though he did not categorically state that the President would ban the mudik.

A revised statement from Fadjroel was not redacted to retract the original one.