Private sector players began reopening their doors on Monday, a week after civil servants resumed their duties, according to the Indonesian Embassy in Beijing. People started to pack the streets of Beijing on the first day that shops and restaurants went back to business.

Despite this facade of normality, however, Indonesian Ambassador Djauhari Oratmangun still urged all Indonesian citizens who had stayed in China to remain vigilant and take all necessary precautions to ensure they are unaffected by what the World Health Organization has labeled a global public health emergency.

“We consistently call on Indonesians in China to avoid crowds [and] take care of their hygiene to prevent the spread of the coronavirus,” Djauhari said during a video conference with officials at the Executive Office of the President in Jakarta on Monday.

The embassy recorded that at least 1,890 Indonesians are still living in mainland China — 722 people are registered with the embassy in Beijing, while 841 and 327 others are respectively registered at the Shanghai and Guangzhou Indonesian missions.

They are all healthy, the envoy said.

The number of Indonesians in China has fallen sharply since December last year when about 16,500 citizens were in the country, since many chose to return home to take advantage of the extended holiday season imposed by the Chinese authorities, Djauhari said. Most students have also chosen to remain longer in Indonesia following a recommendation by the embassy.

However, although most other areas in China have resumed day-to-day activities, Hubei province and its capital Wuhan — the epicenter of the outbreak — remain locked down.

Currently, seven Indonesians are known to have stayed in Hubei; four have families they are unwilling to leave behind, while the other three did not pass health screenings at the airport, preventing them from embarking on a government-organized flight to repatriate the hundreds of Indonesians. The latter three were confirmed not to have contracted the virus and were sent back to their dorms.

The embassy gave assurances that Indonesians who choose to remain in Hubei would be able to get any supplies they need despite the reported shortages. “We have asked the local authorities to make our people a priority. They have guaranteed to give [supplies] to our citizens,” said Djauhari.

Meanwhile, Chinese campuses have also announced a further extension to the holidays for students. "We have been urged to not to go back to campus yet," said Nikkolai Velayati, an Indonesian medical student at Chongqing Medical University. He said there was a possibility that students would resume their studies in March, but the exact date has yet to be announced.

In spite of the reassurances given by authorities in both countries, some citizens are still expressing an eagerness to return to Indonesia.

On Monday morning, the embassy in Beijing said it was considering requests for help from 21 Indonesians who wanted to return to Indonesia.

Djauhari said that Indonesians from other cities had also reached out to the Indonesian consulates, asking for help to arrange return flights during the lockdown, which has been complicated by Jakarta’s recent ban on direct flights connecting Indonesia and China.

The embassy has suggested citizens fly back through third countries, with flights through Tokyo, Seoul, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur offered as the best options, as some airliners still serve those routes.

“We suggest they fly to cities without a 14-day quarantine restriction,” the ambassador said.

However, authorities in Indonesia must also ensure that returnees undergo multilayered health screenings at ports of entry to ensure they are healthy enough to step on Indonesian soil, he added.

The virus, first identified last December, has killed more than 1,000 people, infected more than 43,000 and reached at least 25 countries, according to Johns Hopkins CSSE on Tuesday. Indonesia has yet to report any confirmed infections.

It has surpassed the death toll of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) — a similar disease that killed 813 people as it swept through China and other parts of Asia in 2002 and 2003. SARS had a much higher fatality rate — about 10 percent — than that of the new coronavirus, which has proven fatal to about 2 percent of all those infected. (tjs)

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