Jakarta – An official of the Jakarta Tourism and Creative Economy Agency has said the office will disperse public wedding receptions held in the capital city while the large-scale social restrictions (PSBB) are in force to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
"If there is a report of a wedding ceremony, we will take strict measures against it," the agency's tourism industry division head, Bambang Ismadi, said on Thursday as quoted by kompas.com.
He acknowledged that some citizens had secretly held receptions during the PSBB period, and the events ended up becoming new clusters of COVID-19 transmission.
During the PSBB period, the Jakarta administration bans residents from holding public wedding receptions, allowing them only to hold a small ceremony at religious affairs offices (KUA) or civil registry offices.
Epidemiologist Dewi Nur Aisyah, a member of the expert team with the National COVID-19 Task Force, confirmed that Jakarta had seen new coronavirus clusters, including wedding reception clusters.
Data published on corona.jakarta.go.id showed that as of Thursday morning, 15 people had tested positive for COVID-19 from a wedding cluster in Penggilingan subdistrict in East Jakarta and five people from a wedding cluster in Kebon Pala subdistrict, East Jakarta.
The other new clusters are hotel clusters, Islamic boarding school clusters and night club clusters.
Jakarta has recorded a total of 66,505 infections since March, with 13,227 active cases and 51,578 recoveries as of Thursday morning. The city has 1,650 fatalities linked to COVID-19 so far. (aly)