TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
COVID-19: Blora councillors refuse to take screening test after work trip to Lombok
Out of the 37 participating councillors, only 14 were willing to take the screening test.
Change Size
Residents pass Dr. Moewardi Regional Hospital in Surakarta, Central Java, on March 13. (Antara/Mohammad Ayudha)
S
everal Blora Legislative Council members from Blora regency, Central Java, have refused to take a screening test of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) administered by the regency’s health agency as a precautionary measure following their domestic working trips.
The health agency officials sought to detect whether the councillors had contracted the virus as they had just returned from a four-day working visit to Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara. Some had traveled with their wives and children.
Out of the 37 participating councillors, only 14 were willing to take the screening test.
In a two-minute video posted on Facebook by a page called Opini Blora, some were seen yelling at health agency staff who wanted to carry out the test at Padangan bus station in Bojonegoro regency in Central Java. The video has garnered at least 724,000 views as of Friday afternoon.
"Are you an official? Where is the SOP [standard operating procedure document]? Where is your assignment letter? We went on official visit based on the law, we are not terrorists,” a councillor identified as WR said in the video as reported by kompas.com.
Central Java has recorded 12 confirmed COVID-19 cases as of Friday morning, according to the provincial administration's COVID-19 online tracker, corona.jatengprov.go.id. The administration is also monitoring 2,236 people, of which 129 are in Blora. One patient is currently being closely monitored.
Kompas.com reported that WR went on to question whether the health agency also performed the test on people coming to Blora from other regions by stopping every bus.
Several councillors later asked to be tested at the Cepu General Hospital in Cepu district. However, health agency staffers said they never showed up.
All the 14 people who agreed to be tested were healthy, said Blora Health Agency head of disease control and environmental sanitation division Edi Sucipto.
The agency is planning to test the remaining councillors at their respective homes, Edi added. (dfr)
