“The city of Bogor is declared an orange zone. There are two improvements here. First is the recovery rate, and [second is] the availability of rooms for treating COVID-19 patients," Bogor Mayor Bima Arya Sugiarto said on Wednesday as quoted by kompas.com.

He said that data from the Bogor Health Office showed that the recovery rate for COVID-19 patients in the city had improved over the last month to 67.3 percent, 4.75 percentage points higher than the 62.55 percent recovery rate for West Java province.

"The number of patients who have recovered this week is 133, an increase of 30 percent from the previous week," added Bima.

Moreover, the mayor said that as of Oct. 11, the 21 referral hospitals in the city recorded an occupancy rate of 51 percent for 371 beds in isolation wards and an occupancy rate of 64 percent for 14 beds in intensive care units (ICUs). Meanwhile, only 33 of the 100 beds at the BNN Lido isolation center were currently occupied.

Given these improvements, the Bogor municipal administration has adjusted its social restrictions.

Bima said that businesses in the dining industry, including restaurants, food stalls and cafes, were now allowed to resume dine-in services until 9 p.m.

“After that, only delivery services are allowed," he said.

Bima added that a review of the industry had found that restaurants and food stalls posed a relatively small risk of COVID-19 transmission. Still, he pressed the importance for these businesses to pay extra attention to the health protocols.

"Restaurants and food stalls have a small percentage [of COVID-19 transmission],” he said, noting that these businesses were better at following the health protocols, including their customers. “This means that people have limited interaction, limited time and maintain [physical distancing] while they are there."

Bima said that the primary concern was offices and workplaces, which were currently the largest contributor of COVID-19 cases in Bogor. The mayor had asked every office to form an internal COVID-19 task force and urged all companies to tighten supervision of their offices.

"The COVID-19 cases in family or household clusters are caused by office clusters. So a [person] contracts [the virus] at work and then infects family members at home. This must be monitored carefully," he stressed.

Despite the slight easing of its social restrictions, the Bogor administration had yet to allow movie theaters to reopen, because the venues still posed a high risk of contracting COVID-19.

Earlier in the week, the national COVID-19 task force reminded regional administrations not to let their guard down, even if their regions had been downgraded to an orange or green zone.

"Do not become complacent just because your area is no longer a red zone. Orange zones still pose a danger and a risk of transmission. If the situation continues without significant treatment, these areas have the potential to become red zones again," task force spokesperson Wiku Adisasmito said on Tuesday.

“Our target is for all regions to become green zones, meaning they have had zero infections for four consecutive weeks and have a 100 percent recovery rate,” he said. (iwa)

Editor’s note: This article is part of the COVID-19 task force campaign to raise public awareness about the epidemic.

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