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COVID-19 forces Indonesians to adapt as country marks 2 years of pandemic
Even as life started to return to some semblance of normalcy in recent months – partly due to the availability of vaccines, the pandemic has drastically transforming how people work and learn as they adapt to world changed by the coronavirus.
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Learning the ropes: Students attend a class at SD 153 state elementary school in Palembang, the capital of South Sumatra on Feb. 8. The local government has reduced full face-to-face learning from three times to twice a week following a rise in COVID-19 cases. (Antara/Feny Selly )
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t was roughly two years ago when Indonesia announced its first confirmed case of COVID-19 and the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak as a global pandemic.
Since then, the coronavirus has infected more than 5.6 million people in the country and killed almost 150,000 of them, becoming arguably the biggest health crisis the country has ever seen in recent times and upending the day-to-day lives of people across the archipelago.
Even as life started to return to some semblance of normalcy in recent months – partly due to the availability of vaccines, the pandemic has brought a significant shift in how people conduct their daily lives, drastically transforming how people work and learn as they adapt to a world changed by the coronavirus.
Learning curve
Two years of pandemic have proven to be a continuous learning curve for Ridwan Al-Aziz, a physical education teacher at a private junior high school in Bekasi, West Java, as the pandemic forced a shift to online classes.
The shift left Ridwan initially struggling to figure out creative ways to keep students physically active with no gymnasiums, sports fields or playgrounds.
“Physical education is different from other subjects. Students need to exercise and move during the lesson and not just sit down in front of the screen listening to lectures,” he said.
