Jakarta – The number of coronavirus infection rose again after the Eid holiday. We can't simply hope for improvements to government policy.

The spread of Covid-19 always explodes when two problems arise at the same time. The first is the government inconsistency in implementing an effective mechanism to deal with the pandemic and the second is the public that continues to ignore the danger of the disease.

The daily reports of Covid-19 positive cases in Indonesia shows the spread of the virus accelerated over the last month. But this is not the first time there has been an explosion of Covid-19 cases spread in Indonesian regions. It has also increased highly after the holiday period in January, and after the long holiday for Christmas and New Year. It is possible that it will be the same kind of increase shortly because it is not yet certain that the impact of the spread of the virus caused by mudik has reached its peak.

The impact is now plain to see. Health services in a number of regions are starting to be overwhelmed with Covid patients. These repeated crises resulting from an explosion in the spread of the coronavirus show that there are still unresolved problems with the handling of Covid-19 in Indonesia. In the middle of a pandemic of uncertain duration, the government is not being consistent in the way it responds. Meanwhile, people are sneakily taking advantage of it by relaxing their discipline in preventing the spread of the pandemic.

The relaxations of social distancing in tourist areas at the beginning of May, for example, was clearly counterproductive to the effort to prevent the virus spreading through the mudik ban. Recently, a number of regional governments have finally closed tourist destinations and regions. However, all of this is was too late to prevent the appearance of new coronavirus cluster. Complications arose when tourist destinations were flooded with people and the measures put in place to ban mudik did not prevent millions of people from travelling to their hometowns.

The government is now preparing to extend the mobility restriction of the people (PPKM), a policy that so far has only half-heartedly prevented the spread of the virus because it has been implemented inconsistently and has not covered all regions. In the middle of so much doubt about the various government policies being implemented effectively, the people should increase their own discipline in implementing health protocols.

Read the Complete Story in Tempo English Magazine: https://magz.tempo.co/read/38005/anticipating-new-waves-of-covid-19

Source: https://en.tempo.co/read/1473952/anticipating-new-covid-19-wave