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Risalah Jakarta urges Jokowi to expand heath facilities, impose territorial quarantine
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People enjoy the morning sunlight on a sidewalk in Senayan, Jakarta, on Thursday. (JP/Wendra Ajistyatama)
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ommunity forum Risalah Jakarta has urged President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to improve health facilities and impose a strict territorial quarantine as COVID-19 cases continue to climb.
Risalah Jakarta includes religious leaders, activists, academics and cultural figures in Jakarta. The forum was initiated by former Religious Affairs Minister Lukman Hakim Saifuddin and has been facilitated by the ministry since 2018.
Alissa Wahid, who is a moderator of the forum, said the government should focus on building more emergency hospitals at both the central and regional levels.
“If necessary, prepare field hospitals to treat COVID-19 patients with mild infections. Allow hospitals that have stated their readiness to conduct rapid tests and accelerate the acquisition of test results,” Alissa said in a press release on Thursday.
She added that the ongoing health crisis was an extraordinary circumstance and the result of a serious and infectious disease, as reflected by the declaration of a public health emergency, so it required a strict restriction policy.
“Consider the proposed territorial quarantine policy to the extent that is required by the urgency of the situation, duration, geographical coverage and scope. Simplify government licensing for the need to act fast,” she said.
Alissa thought the social distancing policy and the appeal to stay at home had not reached their goal and that the government needed to increase the community’s sensitivity to the crisis.
Read also: Governor Anies calls for greater authority to handle COVID-19 epicenter
The 2018 Health Quarantine Law stipulated four quarantine measures: home quarantine, hospital quarantine, territorial quarantine and large-scale social distancing.
President Jokowi declared a COVID-19 public health emergency on Tuesday. He also decided to impose large-scale social distancing measures using powers established by the health quarantine law.
On the same day, Risalah Jakarta sent an open letter to the President, urging him to improve parts of the pandemic response, including medical facilities and equipment, social security and the legal compliance of all parties during the crisis.
Member Usman Hamid, who is also the executive director of Amnesty International Indonesia, stressed the importance of social security in times of social restriction.
“It will adversely affect the right of people to work, especially citizens who have unstable jobs, those with low incomes or informal workers, who are affected disproportionately,” said Usman.
He said companies, except those in health care and other essential sectors, should allow employees to work from home, but the government needed to ensure all affected citizens had enough access to social security.
Risalah Jakarta called on the government to cooperate with agencies dealing with COVID-19 in other countries and allow intervention in areas that were significantly affected and had the potential to spread the disease.
The forum also asked Indonesia to learn from other countries’ experiences to carry out protocols and procurement precisely, quickly and on a large scale.
As of Thursday, Indonesian health authorities had confirmed 1,790 cases of COVID-19 with 170 fatalities across 32 provinces.
