The government is ready to give assistance to an Indonesian woman in her 50s who recently tested positive for the COVID-19 coronavirus in the Australian state of Victoria, Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi says. 

Retno said that she had met with Australian Ambassador to Indonesia Gary Quinlan in Jakarta on Monday to clarify the citizenship status of the woman, who was later confirmed to be an Indonesian citizen holding an Australian permanent residency visa. 

She told reporters the Indonesian government “will try to get more information about her” while at the same time respecting her privacy. 

“However, as she is an Indonesian citizen then she has to understand that if she needs help, our representative [in Australia] is ready to help her at any time,” Retno said on Monday.

News of the patient made rounds on Sunday after the Victorian Health Department issued a public statement saying the patient "who is now well and in home-isolation" was the 12th confirmed COVID-19 case in Victoria. 

The woman, who flew from Jakarta to Perth on Feb. 27, tested positive for the coronavirus on Saturday.

The department is seeking to contact anyone who was traveling on Virgin Airlines flight VA682 from Perth to Melbourne on March 2, which was the flight taken by the patient when she was already showing symptoms of the respiratory illness.

The Indonesian Health Ministry’s Disease Control and Prevention Director General Achmad Yurianto said his ministry had coordinated with Indonesian representatives in the neighboring country to trace the patient’s travel records. 

Achmad, however, asserted that his office believed the patient “did not contract the virus in Indonesia”.

Authorities worldwide, including in Indonesia and Australia, are on high alert over the coronavirus epidemic that has killed more than 4,000 and infected more than 110,000 people in more than 100 countries, AFP reported. 

According to data compiled by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, Australia recorded 91 confirmed cases as of Tuesday, while Indonesia recorded 19 cases on its soil. 

Citizens have been advised to regularly wash their hands with soap and take care of their health as the best means of protecting themselves against the virus.

Indonesia has reported a spike in COVID-19 cases, with 19 patients confirmed as having contracted the virus, indicating an increase of 13 cases from the previous total of six.

"The number of confirmed cases today is at 19, including the first six cases," said Directorate General of Disease Prevention and Control of the Ministry of Health, Achmad Yurianto, speaking from the Presidential Offices in Jakarta, Monday.

Yurianto, who is also the government's spokesperson for the handling of COVID-19, provided details of each case.

"We identified case-7 as a 59-year-old woman who is exhibiting mild illness symptoms and is stable. This is an imported case, as she had just returned from a foreign country and was exhibiting symptoms. She was examined four days ago and the test results came out positive. This is case number 7," he added.

Case-8 is known to be the spouse of case-7 and had contracted the disease from her. "He is being treated with a number of health support devices, including IV and oxygen," he said, adding that he had a history of some existing illnesses, including diarrhea and diabetes prior to the infection. He is categorized as a severely ill patient.

"Case-9 is a 55-year-old woman who is exhibiting mild illness symptoms without any records of existing diseases. She is also an imported case and is not from any clusters. She came in from a foreign country," he added.

A 29-year-old male who is a foreign national was identified as case-19. He exhibited mild illness symptoms and was part of the tracing scheme from case-1.

Another foreign national, a 54-year-old woman, was identified as case-11, as well as a 31-year-old male identified as case-12, who are both exhibiting mild to moderate illness symptoms and was also tracked down based on the list of contacts made by case-1.

Case-13 is a 16-year-old female who was tracked from the sub-cluster of case-3, while case-14 is a 50-year-old male with mild to moderate symptoms and is an imported case.

Case-15 is a 43-year-old female imported case and case-16 is a 17-year-old female who had close contact with case-15.

Case-7 is a 56-year-old male imported case, case-18 is a 55-year-old imported case, and case-19 is a 40-year-old male imported case.

"Some of them are being treated in Jakarta and there are some treated outside of Jakarta," Yurianto explained.

 Indonesian Minister of the Environment and Forestry Siti Nurbaya received Dutch Minister of Infrastructures and Water Management Cora Van Nieuwenhuizen in Jakarta on Monday to discuss cooperation in waste management and climate change.

The two ministers agreed to continue and strengthen cooperation in waste management, circular economy, water quality and climate change contained in a memorandum of understanding (MoU), according to a written statement received here.

Siti Nurbaya said circular economy aimed at eliminating waste and continual use of resources is now trending in Indonesia. Several companies including Danone, Nestle, Unilever and Tetra-pack have taken steps in favor of circular economy.

She said 33 Indonesian cities have imposed a ban on single-use plastic bags.

After all, the Indonesian government has been extra cautious in making the waste management policy in view of the country's large demography and the varying spectrum of the demography.

Meanwhile, Minister Cora hailed the signing of the MoU on circular economy. "The Netherlands also has experience in processing waste into energy as part of circular economy. There is a business delegation in charge of this issue, which also joins the visit to Indonesia this time."

He said the Dutch government is developing a new project called fishing for litter. The project which involves business entities is aimed at recycling plastic waste into usable items.

"We invite the minister of the environment and forestry to visit the Netherlands to get first hand information about that," he said.

Minister Cora also invited the Indonesian minister for the environment and forestry to attend the Global Commission Summit scheduled for October 2020. At the forum the Indonesian government will have a chance to unveil a variety of programs to control climate change in Indonesia.

The government of German Chancellor Angela Merkel has taken its first steps to help companies and workers affected by the fallout from the coronavirus outbreak and will invest an additional 12.4 billion euros (US$14.1 billion) between 2021 and 2024.

After more than seven hours of talks on Sunday night, Merkel’s coalition loosened rules for short-term work compensation, making it easier for big companies heavily affected by the virus like Deutsche Lufthansa AG to apply for aid to offset wages when they are forced to temporarily halt work. “No company in Germany should go bankrupt and no job should get lost due to the coronavirus,” the coalition said in a statement after the meeting.

Pressure for Germany to act intensified in the days before leaders of Merkel’s Christian Democratic-led bloc and the Social Democrats met in the chancellery in Berlin. The death of the first German from the coronavirus, a 60-year-old man who vacationed in Egypt, added to the pressure. While short of the full-blown stimulus package that many economists and investors urged, Germany’s government sought to walk a fine line between reassuring business and avoiding public panic.

Merkel’s coalition could not agree on other measures like an accelerated phase out of the so-called solidarity tax, which helped pay for reunification, or an expansion of funds for state-backed loans and guarantees to ease a cash crunch for companies affected by supply and demand disruptions.

The clearest sign that the virus was hitting the German economy came on Friday, when Deutsche Lufthansa AG slashed capacity by as much as 50 percent.

“The impact on our booking situation is immense,” Chief Executive Officer Carsten Spohr said in an internal memo to employees seen by Bloomberg. “We must assume that it may take months before we will see first signs of stability,” he said in the Friday message.

German companies cut spending for a third quarter at the end of 2019, leaving the economy vulnerable to supply chain havoc caused by the outbreak. Gross domestic product stagnated in the fourth quarter, slowing the annualized pace of growth to 0.3 percent.

While Germany has Europe’s fullest budget coffers, Merkel’s government has long resisted pressure from the European Central Bank and other institutions to unleash its fiscal power with a stimulus that might benefit the region’s wider economy.

European finance ministers were warned last week that a prolonged coronavirus outbreak in the region could threaten “cascading effects” stemming from companies suffering squeezed liquidity, which could then be amplified by financial markets.

Empty stadiums?

Germany is stepping up efforts to slow the spread. Health Minister Jens Spahn on Sunday proposed canceling events of more than 1,000 people, a move that would rule out most professional sporting events and big concerts. Germany’s professional soccer league vowed to finish the season, but said it would work with authorities about holding matches, opening the door to playing in empty stadiums.

Eliminating the solidarity tax -- a 5.5 percent surcharge on income -- could shore up domestic demand. The tax, levied after the collapse of the Berlin Wall to help fund infrastructure in the former communist East, generated nearly 19 billion euros for the German government in 2018. It had been eliminated for 90% of taxpayers by the coalition -- a cut that had been set to take effect in 2021.

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Olaf Scholz, Merkel’s Social Democratic finance minister, had pushed for moving forward the reduction of the tax this summer. He also championed a plan to take on 42 billion euros of debt from cash-strapped communities in an effort to divert local coffers to infrastructure projects, such as school and road repairs.

Recession warning

Merkel’s CDU had previously ruled out a more sweeping stimulus package to stem the damage wrought by the virus outbreak, arguing that a surge in public spending won’t address worries among consumers and investors.

That flew in the face of growing calls by industry groups for more action. The country’s influential industry federation BDI on Thursday warned of a recession and urged the government to consider stimulus measures.

The meeting was overshadowed by the refugee crisis at the Greek-Turkish border and a conflict between Merkel’s CDU-led conservative bloc and the Social Democrats over the question of whether Germany should let some of the refugees into the country. The government agreed to help between 1,000 and 1,500 children who need medical treatment in the context of a European “coalition of the willing.”