Experts have urged the government to take post-election measures by testing election officials who met with countless people and worked around the clock in ensuring voting day went smoothly last week.

KPU South Tangerang chairman Bambang Dwitoro tested positive on Dec. 5, four days before the election took place on Wednesday, but his office held off on announcing his diagnosis to the public due to fears that it would discourage voters from turning up.

After a week of hospital treatment, he died of COVID-19 on Saturday.

Titi Anggraini from the Association for Elections and Democracy (Perludem) said officials of local KPUs and local elections supervisory agencies (Bawaslu) worked with masks on while keeping a distance and washing their hands, but their jobs made them more vulnerable to virus exposure.

“It's just that they have a more intense workload. They interacted with countless people, from voters and fellow officials in the field to candidates and their teams,” she told The Jakarta Post.

This was especially the case for KPU workers at the regency level, who were very hands-on in preparing for the elections in their respective regions, including in preparing materials, disseminating information and assisting candidates, she said.

She said Bambang’s death should be a wake-up call that the danger of COVID-19 was real, and even though he was not the first one infected with the virus and others had managed to recover, the government should take no chances.

To anticipate more cases and deaths because of the virus’ spread at polling stations, Titi recommended that the government test all election organizers and local poll administrators who met many people during election day.

“Poll workers took COVID-19 tests only before they were on duty — and it was only a rapid antibody test a few days before election day. if they showed ‘reactive’ results, they were replaced,” she said. “However, after working and interacting with many people on voting day, they did not get tested.

“Not to mention that even though health protocols are in place, there is always room for errors in their implementation.”

A few days before the Dec. 9 polls, Bawaslu found that poll workers in 1,023 polling stations had been infected with COVID-19, and 1,420 polling stations were bound to be set up in locations that would not meet the required standards for maintaining a physical distance. These numbers, however, might pale in comparison to the total number of about 298,000 polling stations.

Of the 309 cities and regencies holding the elections, 24 were in red zones, areas at high risk of COVID-19 infection. The remaining 237 were in orange zones, or moderate-risk areas, while another 42 were in yellow zones or low-risk areas. Six more regions were in green zones, which are either unaffected by COVID-19 or have not recorded any new cases.

National COVID-19 task force spokesman Wiku Adisasmito previously said that as many as 178,039 people had been reprimanded on voting day for not complying with health protocols in accordance with KPU regulations, such as wearing masks, washing hands and keeping a distance at polling stations.

Wiku said the level of compliance among election officials in providing facilities to prevent the spread of COVID-19 at polling stations, like hand-washing stations, was below 50 percent. The average voter compliance with mask-wearing rules at polling stations was 95 percent and with social distancing measures was 90 percent.

In East Java, some election candidates and poll organizers have tested positive for COVID-19, including the Situbondo KPU head who had tested positive a few days before voting day. Situbondo was among the East Java regencies holding regental elections this year.

Makhyan Jibril Al-Farabi of East Java's COVID-19 task force said the province was working to meet the World Health Organization’s testing capacity standard of at least 1 per 1,000 population per week.

“Currently, we are at 1 per 944 population,” he told the Post, adding that local health authorities were currently discussing whether or not to screen poll workers after the elections with antibody tests.

The direct impact of regional elections to the worsening COVID-19 spread in Indonesia should not be undermined, as coronavirus infection often followed exponential growth patterns, said epidemiologist Dicky Budiman.

He said while it was just a matter of time and the ability in testing and tracing, he estimated that Indonesia’s daily infection rate could increase by up to 10 percent and its fatality rate by up to 9 percent.

He pointed to an example of a massive spike of daily cases in the United States following the election on Nov. 3, after which the country consistently reported new cases above 100,000 every day. On Friday, it reported as many as 280,000 new cases in a day. 

“What happened in the US is the logical consequence of holding an election amid an uncontrolled outbreak,” he said.

“[Although the recent simultaneous regional elections did not cover every corner of Indonesia, unlike the US election], that doesn't mean that it won’t happen here. We are going in that direction.”

He predicted that the increase in the number of infections could be seen within the next few months after the elections, depending on the demographics of each region. He said there was no other option but to increase swab testing as early as possible nationwide, ideally at least tripling the number to 100,000 people per day.

The number of people swab tested was above 30,000 per day after the elections.

“Otherwise, we have to prepare for the worst-case scenarios, for example, a contingency plan for the PSBB across Java if spikes in cases reported in the three big provinces, while we might not be able to catch up,” he said.

Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Mahfud MD was quick to defend the government’s insistence of hosting the elections during the pandemic, despite critics calling for a postponement.

“Until today, there have been no reports of infection clusters among election crowds,” he said as quoted by kompas.com.

Central government health authorities were not immediately available for comments.

KPU commissioner Ilham Saputra said his office was still looking into its budget to determine whether or not it was feasible to perform an antibody test on all poll workers after voting day, saying that it was preparing a memo for all local KPUs.

“We are drafting a memo, which will also advise local KPUs to coordinate with regional administrations or local COVID-19 task forces [about the planned rapid tests],” he said.

He added that all local KPUs could also seek assistance from local health authorities on swab tests for poll workers who needed it. (ars/ipa)