The COVID-19 pandemic has created tension and panic in a number of communities in Indonesia as residents scramble to distance themselves from perceived risks of infection.

This week in Medan, North Sumatra, residents attempted to prevent the burial of a suspected COVID-19 case in a Muslim cemetery, even though the family had followed the safety procedures set by health authorities.

The deceased was a civil servant who was admitted to Haji Adam Malik General Hospital in Medan. He died on Wednesday afternoon after two days of medical treatment.

“We, the residents, will not accept a coronavirus body being buried here. We do not want ambulances passing through the streets [of our neighborhoods],” said a resident in a video posted on YouTube on Wednesday, with other locals shouting nearby.

The neighborhood head, identified only as Budi, said the body had arrived at the cemetery at about 9 p.m. on Wednesday, with several medical officers in full protective equipment.

“[The residents] just refused it. They knew it was [a coronavirus victim] and they objected to him being buried there,” Budi said as quoted by kompas.com on Thursday.

Budi said he noticed that the officers in charge of burying the body were so “overwhelmed” by the crowd that one of them almost passed out. They eventually succeeded in burying the body at about midnight.

At Persahabatan General Hospital in East Jakarta, medical workers, including nurses and doctors who are treating COVID-19 patients, have reportedly been kicked out of boarding houses near the hospital.

During a recent Kompas TV interview, Indonesian Nurses Association (PPNI) chair Harif Fadhillah said people feared that medical workers could be at risk of transmitting the virus.

Unable to find other places to stay, some medical workers had to stay at the hospital. The hospital management eventually found a new place for them to live and provided a shuttle service to and from the residence.

In Bogor, West Java, a 26-year-old resident was surprised to discover that his personal medical records, which identified him as a patient under surveillance for COVID-19, had been leaked to the public. It is unclear who was responsible for the leak.

More shockingly, a widely circulated screenshot of an Excel document listed him as a confirmed case. This was news to the patient. He was confused about what to do and where to report to, and his neighbors pressured him for clarification.

“Do you know what hurts me the most? When my nephews could not socialize with others because people said their uncle at home had the coronavirus,” the patient wrote on his Twitter account on Monday, which then went viral.

People thought to have COVID-19 and their close contacts have experienced social discrimination since the country’s first cases were detected. Numerous failures to protect personal data have exacerbated the situation.

After President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo announced Indonesia’s first two confirmed cases on March 2, a leaked report with their complete identities and misinformation about their private lives circulated on social media.

Residents who lived in the same housing complex faced immediate discrimination, including from their employers, who prohibited them from coming to work until they provided a “coronavirus-free” letter from the authorities, the patients’ neighbor said.

Stigma was more dangerous than the disease itself, World Health Organization director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in early March, just when the disease appeared to be spreading more rapidly outside China than inside it.

"Stigma, to be honest, is more dangerous than the virus itself. Let's really underline that. Stigma is the most dangerous enemy," he told a news briefing in Geneva at that time, Reuters reported.

He said the fight against the coronavirus should become a bridge for peace, adding, "I think we have a common enemy now.”

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