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Government seeks to simplify curbs regime with another name change
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Security personnel check motorists' identity documents on Jl. Raya Bogor in East Jakarta on July 2. The government imposed emergency public activity restrictions (PPKM Darurat) across much of Java and Bali from July 3 to 20 to stem the alarming surge of COVID-19 cases. Officials recently extended the curbs for another week, with a view to relaxing the measures under a new system of community activity restrictions. (Antara/Muhammad Adimaja)
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n announcing its decision to extend emergency curbs until the end of this week, the government has ditched its previous naming convention for a four-tier community activity restrictions (PPKM) system, officials have said.
Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister Luhut Pandjaitan said the name change was made at the request of President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo in a bid to simplify the policy terms.
"Pak President has asked us not to use the terms PPKM Mikro or PPKM Darurat and use the simpler PPKM level IV instead. So in the future, we'll call the restrictions PPKM levels I, II, III and IV," Luhut said in a virtual press conference on Wednesday.
Under the new four-tier system, which was formalized in a Home Minister instruction issued on Tuesday, each city or regency must enforce restrictions based on their level of risk, with level IV being the most stringent.
The risk level is determined by each region’s transmission rate, health system response capacity as well as the “psychological condition of the people”, said Jodi Mahardi, spokesman for the Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister, on Wednesday evening.
The first two indicators are based on guidelines issued by the World Health Organization in 2020.
Level IV classification is meant for regencies or cities with more than 150 confirmed cases per 100,000 people per week, a hospitalization rate of more than 30 patients per 100,000 people per week, and a mortality rate of more than five deaths per 100,000 people per week.
