VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

The Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan highlighted the increase in confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 in four provinces, including West Sumatra, Riau, East Kalimantan, and Papua.

"In the four provinces I mentioned earlier, it rose 7 percent from 13.4 percent at the beginning of the 9-15 September 2020 period to 20.5 percent in the 14-20 October 2020 period," said Luhut Pandjaitan at a virtual meeting on handling COVID-19, Jakarta. Wednesday (21/10).

Luhut Pandjaitany, who is also Deputy Chair of the Policy Committee for the Control of COVID-19 and National Economic Recovery, also asked relevant officials to pay special attention to the four provinces.

"I ask the Task Force Commander, Minister of Health, Governors, Commander of the Main Command, Police, please look. So I will also pay attention to these four provinces, West Sumatra, East Kalimantan, Riau, and Papua," said Luhut Pandjaitan in a statement in Jakarta, Thursday.

Luhut also said that the involvement of the Indonesian Army-Police in carrying out the justice operation as an effort to reduce the number of the spread of COVID-19 was impactful.

This, he said, was seen in East Java Province, where because of changes in people's behavior, the positive number of COVID-19 had decreased.

"This data is real time. We hope that in areas with high cases, it is done like in East Java Province. So the cooperation between the Governor, the Police, the Commander of the Main Command, the Health Service is very important," said Luhut Pandjaitan.

The four provinces were also asked to ensure that there was a centralized quarantine system as an effort so that patients with OTG or low symptoms did not transmit to other people during independent isolation.

The Ministry of Health must also ensure the availability of drugs, ICU beds, and understand the clinical management of COVID-19 treatment.

The Ministry of Health was also asked to check the management of the referral hospitals again.

"Then to ensure the availability of all medical aspects, the availability of drugs, reagents, bed capacity, and the socialization of clinical management for COVID-19 patients, it goes well," said Luhut.

The government has planned three strategies in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. First, behavior change and early detection of spread, secondly the construction of quarantine and isolation centers, and third management of COVID-19 treatment.

"I ask all of us to refer to the three strategies, both from the Ministry of Health, the Task Force and the Governor, the Police, the Commander of the Main Command. All of us refer to that strategy so we really are a team, so no one goes independently," he said. (Antaranews)