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Monas visitors welcome Jakarta E-Prix postponement amid Covid-19
Jakarta has postponed indefinitely a car race that had been planned for June because of the coronavirus, and people near the planned racetrack seem anything but disappointed.
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Ocang, who has worked as a caretaker at the National Monument site in Gambir district, Central Jakarta, since 2014, sweeps the park on March 12. (JP/Dzulfiqar Fathur Rahman)
R
azendra Sheva, a 17-year-old senior high school student, first learned about the planned Jakarta E-Prix, a Formula E race, from a TV news report. He went to the National Monument (Monas) area in Central Jakarta’s Gambir district, where the race was to be held on June 6, for a vacation on Thursday, just a day after the Jakarta administration announced the race was postponed indefinitely.
As the race was expected to bring in tourists from around the world, Sheva was actually excited about it. But he was relieved that it was postponed to prevent the spread of the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
"I think it is good to postpone the race, so that the coronavirus does not spread any further," Sheva, who lives in Pondok Gede in Bekasi, West Java, said on Thursday.
Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan had announced in September that Jakarta would host the race, and that it was expected to spur business activity in the capital, particularly tourism.
The city administration also took other measures to curtail the spread of the respiratory illness, including suspending its weekly Car Free Day event, closing 14 tourist attractions and schools for two weeks and withholding permits for events that draw large crowds.
As of Sunday morning, Indonesia has confirmed 96 cases of COVID-19 infection with five fatalities. The government has also announced that the spread of the influenza-like ailment that originated from Wuhan in China has spread to at least eight provinces, with Jakarta having recorded the highest number of cases.
As of Saturday afternoon, the Jakarta administration was monitoring 660 people and closely observing 289 people.
