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Government opts for more targeted restrictions, while relaxing others, ahead of Chinese New Year
The government has sent mixed messages in its latest attempt to tweak pandemic protocols by introducing a more targeted policy on restrictions while relaxing existing curbs ahead of Chinese New Year.
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A pedestrian walks in front of a restaurant on Jl. Sabang in Central Jakarta on Jan. 8. The government has instructed regional administrations throughout Java and Bali to impose micro-scale public activity restrictions (PPKM Mikro) from Feb. 9 to 22 to curb COVID-19 transmission at the local level. (Antara/Dhemas Reviyanto)
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irlangga Hartarto, the leader of the National Economic Recovery (PEN) and COVID-19 Response Team, has announced that civil servants, state-owned enterprise employees, the police and members of the military will not be permitted to travel out of town during the Lunar New Year holiday and has urged everyone else to follow suit.
However, he said on Monday that the government would begin imposing more targeted restrictions in densely populated regions of Java and Bali. Such areas account for 66 percent of all new COVID-19 cases in the country.
But in their efforts to prevent a surge of transmission over the upcoming holiday, officials have introduced seemingly more relaxed measures – eliciting criticism from health experts.
Under the latest mobility restrictions, dubbed micro-scale public activity restrictions (PPKM Mikro), the operational hours of restaurants and shopping malls have been extended until 9 p.m.
In the previous round of PPKM, imposed from Jan. 26 to Feb. 8, restaurants and malls were only allowed to stay open until 8 p.m. In the first phase of PPKM, from Jan. 11 to 25, they were only allowed to operate until 7 p.m.
The government has also permitted restaurants to offer dine-in services at 50 percent of their maximum capacity, more lenient than the 25 percent occupancy limit of the previous round of restrictions.
Under large-scale social restrictions (PSBB), which were implemented extensively across the archipelago from April of last year, restaurants were entirely barred from offering dine-in services and were only allowed to provide takeaway or delivery services.
