The Jakarta administration has announced its plan to put stickers on the houses of residents currently self-isolating. 

 

Tri Yunis Miko Wahyono, an epidemiologist of the University of Indonesia, said the stickers would immediately inform officers in the neighborhood about the health status of people living in the marked house.  

 

“I think it is essential to use the stickers to inform other people about the health status of residents that live in the house,” Tri said on Tuesday as quoted by tempo.co, adding that it would warn other people planning to visit the house. 

 

He went on to say that self-isolating at home would not be easy, although possible. Requirements include the house having a dedicated bathroom for the COVID-19 patient. “Putting on the sticker does not mean that [the government is disgracing the house’s residents, but simply informing other people near that house to stay alert,” he added.

 

Jakarta deputy governor Ahmad Riza Patria said the use of stickers to mark houses was in line with Gubernatorial Decree No. 980/2020 on isolation management for COVID-19 handling. 

 

He said the rule was made to help officers treat self-isolating patients, and to inform people surrounding the patients. 

 

“It is important to let the officers and the neighborhood know that there are residents conducting self-isolation at their homes,” the deputy governor said in a statement, which was made available on Oct. 1, according to kompas.com. 

 

However, the plan has also drawn opposition.  

The Jakarta Ombudsman said the house marking could lead to stigmatization of asymptomatic COVID-19 patients self-isolating at their homes.  

 

“People may shun them,” Jakarta Ombudsman head Teguh Nugroho told tempo.co on Oct. 2.

He suggested the government increase the role of neighborhood units (RT) and community units (RW) to help monitor residents self-isolating at home, instead of marking their houses. 

 

“The cost of ordering RT and RW officers to do the job would be less than renting hotel rooms [for the asymptomatic patients] or sending them to hospitals,” he added.  

 

Teguh further said that Jakarta’s decision to support self-isolation at home was because the cost was too high to send them to hotels and hospitals. 

 

“Jakarta will have a poor cash flow if all patients are sent off to hotels and the government’s facilities,” he added.

 

In the meantime, self-isolation centers across the capital have started to fill up as the number of COVID-19 cases continues to rise. 

 

In response, the city administration has prepared other locations as self-isolation centers, which are free to use. Isolation centers in towers 4 and 5 of the former athletes village in Kemayoran – now an emergency hospital for COVID-19 patients in Central Jakarta – currently house 1,984 patients out of a capacity of 3,116, tempo.co reported on Friday.  

 

Meanwhile, U Stay Hotel Mangga Besar in West Jakarta and Ibis Style Hotel Mangga Dua in Central Jakarta, which were turned into isolation centers on Sept. 27, have run out of vacant rooms to accommodate symptomatic and asymptomatic COVID-19 patients. The two hotels accommodate 140 and 212 people, respectively. (nkn)