{"id":54610,"date":"2020-03-27T15:20:45","date_gmt":"2020-03-27T04:20:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=54610"},"modified":"2020-03-27T16:03:41","modified_gmt":"2020-03-27T05:03:41","slug":"coronavirus-the-grim-view-from-indonesia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/coronavirus-the-grim-view-from-indonesia\/","title":{"rendered":"Coronavirus: the grim view from Indonesia"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Like the end-of-the-world scenario from Nevil Shute\u2019s futuristic novel On the beach<\/a><\/em>, a feeling of impending desolation seems to hang over Indonesia as it waits for what health experts fear may be a slowly-ticking coronavirus bomb nearing the point of detonation.<\/p>\n

From its first confirmed case on 3 March (far later than neighbouring Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines), Indonesia is now reporting more than 100 new patients<\/a> a day, with a death rate among the highest in the world.<\/p>\n

Myanmar and Laos, two of the three ASEAN countries sharing a long, porous border with China, have finally reported their first Covid-19 cases, but the scepticism continues after they claimed their patients were recent travellers from Thailand, Britain and the United States.<\/p>\n

Most of Indonesia\u2019s nearly 900 confirmed infections are in Jakarta and in the surrounding provinces of West Java and Banten, but although commerce is down to a relative trickle, President Joko Widodo has refused to lock down<\/a> the capital because of the social and economic cost.<\/p>\n

Given the number of access points into the city, it would be impossible anyway.\u00a0But foremost in Widodo\u2019s mind, according to government sources, is the ever-present danger of social unrest, which has already seen Indonesian-Chinese families move to Singapore to wait out the crisis.<\/p>\n

Widodo is also refusing to approve proposed lockdowns in Papua, West Nusa Tenggara and North Kalimantan, apparently worried that it will lead to a flood of similar actions by other provincial governments seeking to prevent the further spread of the virus on islands where only a few cases have been reported so far.<\/p>\n

Diplomatic missions, including the United States and Australia, have been cut to the bone, evacuating non-essential staff and their families for the simple reason that the Indonesian health system is already struggling to cope with a pandemic it took too long to prepare for.<\/p>\n

Indeed, with a lack of proper facilities, equipment and medical personnel\u2014and a health minister who anywhere else would have been sacked\u2014Indonesia is fighting an uphill battle against the spread of Covid-19 that experts believe will only come to a peak in May or even June.<\/p>\n

Altogether, 22 of Indonesia\u2019s 34 provinces and special regions have reported a total of 893 confirmed infections and 78 deaths. A huge percentage of the cases\u00a0have been on Java, home to 141 million of Indonesia\u2019s 273-million-strong population\u2014and most of those have been in urban centres.<\/p>\n

With a 20% increase in infections each day, the Bandung Institute of Technology\u2019s Center for Mathematical Modelling and Simulation believes there will be at least 60,000 cases<\/a> by the end of April, almost twice the estimate given this week\u00a0by a London-based counterpart institute.<\/p>\n

Starting from a lower initial base, the vast archipelago appears to be on the same trajectory as Iran (population: 83.9 million) which, as of 26 March, had a total of more than 29,000 cases, climbing by about 2,000 new patients a day, and 2,234 deaths\u2014a mortality rate similar to that of Indonesia.<\/p>\n

Faced with the beginning of the Ramadan fasting month on 23 April, when Muslims normally break their fast together in groups, the government has already decided to call off\u00a0mudik<\/em>,\u00a0the post-Ramadan tradition in which about 10 million Indonesians flock back to their home towns and villages.<\/p>\n

\u2018If we allowed mudik to go ahead it would be catastrophic\u2019, one senior government minister told\u00a0The Strategist<\/em>. National Disaster Management Agency director Lieutenant General Doni Monardo, the concurrent head of the Covid-19 taskforce, added his voice as well, saying the annual pilgrimage \u2018presents a risk of contagion to the entire country\u2019.<\/p>\n

There are already signs of a worrying, unchecked drift to the countryside, particularly among city dwellers who always return to their villages when the going gets tough. Casual workers have helped Indonesia through past economic crises, but the current medical emergency means the informal sector is being hit the hardest.<\/p>\n

Testing has been minimal across Indonesia, but the recent delivery of new rapid-testing kits from China\u2014however much a drop in the bucket\u2014will likely give a better pointer to the enormity of the task before the government in trying to contain the virus.<\/p>\n

Most fears centre on Bali, which is seen as the potential epicentre of the pandemic because of its huge numbers of tourists and the absence of any testing up to now. Outside of the island\u2019s four state hospitals, private doctors are unaware of just how far the virus has spread in the community.<\/p>\n

\u2018We send patients with suspect symptoms to those hospitals and never hear back\u2019, says one physician, who is astonished the island still remains nominally open to tourists. \u2018They keep a tight lid on everything. The only time we knew the hospitals were full was when we had to isolate one of their patients.\u2019<\/p>\n

Amid all the gloom, there are reminders that life goes on\u2014or not. On 25 March, Widodo\u2019s mother died of cancer in the Central Java city of Solo. The grieving president urged mourners to practise social distancing and not attend the funeral. Not far away, on the same day, a Detachment 88 counterterrorism team shot dead an Islamic militant and arrested two others on Java\u2019s north coast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like the end-of-the-world scenario from Nevil Shute\u2019s futuristic novel On the beach, a feeling of impending desolation seems to hang over Indonesia as it waits for what health experts fear may be a slowly-ticking coronavirus …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":335,"featured_media":54614,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2658,8,377,983],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCoronavirus: the grim view from Indonesia | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/coronavirus-the-grim-view-from-indonesia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Coronavirus: the grim view from Indonesia | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Like the end-of-the-world scenario from Nevil Shute\u2019s futuristic novel On the beach, a feeling of impending desolation seems to hang over Indonesia as it waits for what health experts fear may be a slowly-ticking coronavirus ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/coronavirus-the-grim-view-from-indonesia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ASPI.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-03-27T04:20:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-03-27T05:03:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/GettyImages-1205043263.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"683\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"John McBeth\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"John McBeth\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/\",\"name\":\"The Strategist\",\"description\":\"ASPI's analysis and commentary site\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/coronavirus-the-grim-view-from-indonesia\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/GettyImages-1205043263.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/GettyImages-1205043263.jpg\",\"width\":1024,\"height\":683,\"caption\":\"YOGYAKARTA, INDONESIA - MARCH 04: A teacher shows students how to use a mask made from tissue at the Cinta Bangsa kindergarten as Indonesia reports two cases of COVID-19 on March 4, 2020 in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. 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