Nina A. Loasana

The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

Indonesia has seen a declining number of daily COVID-19 cases in the past few weeks despite the continued relaxation of pandemic rules and an increase in public mobility.

The weekly virus caseload has dropped by around 38 percent, from around 15,000 cases in the first seven days of this month to 9,300 last week, while the number of active cases fell by 34.7 percent from 98,000 cases to 64,000.

New daily infections fell below 1,000 for the fourth straight day on Sunday, at 607 cases. It was the first time the country recorded less than 1,000 daily cases since mid-January. During the third COVID-19 wave sparked by the highly contagious Omicron variant, daily cases climbed rapidly from mere hundreds in mid-January to a peak of more than 63,000 cases by Feb. 17.

The positivity rate also dropped below 1 percent on Thursday – to 0.85 percent – for the first time since January. The bed occupancy rate dropped to 4 percent on Thursday, down from 5 percent in the previous week.

These improving numbers occurred amid unprecedented relaxations of COVID-19 restrictions as Indonesia seeks to gradually transition to endemicity.

Last month, authorities waived mandatory quarantine for fully vaccinated international visitors and lifted the COVID-19 test requirement for domestic travelers who have received booster shots.

For the first time in two years, the government has allowed Muslims to pray at public mosques without physical-distancing requirements or a limit on the number of worshipers allowed to gather at any one time.

It has also allowed people to embark on the mudik (exodus) for Idul Fitri, marking the first time in two years since travel restrictions were eased for holiday festivities.

Increase in mobility

The relaxation has led to a significant increase in public mobility, with people beginning to crowd shopping centers, restaurants and places of worship.

National COVID-19 task force spokesperson Wiku Adi Sasmito said that as of March 30, public mobility had reached the highest level since the pandemic started.

"Especially in public parks, supermarkets, malls and vacation spots," Wiku said earlier this month as reported by tempo.co.

According to Statistics Indonesia (BPS) data, people’s movement around public parks increased more than four times in March from the previous month, from 7.39 percent to 32.19 percent.

Similar increases also occurred in offices, with mobility increasing from 6.23  to 6.57 percent, and in supermarkets, where mobility rose from 25.75 percent to 27.85 percent.

Wiku said public mobility was expected to continue to rise until the Idul Fitri holiday, when millions of people are predicted to participate in mudik in early May.

Authorities are expecting 85 million people to go on mudik, with some 14 million travelers set to leave Greater Jakarta alone. This figure is much higher than pre-pandemic levels, when some 30 million people participated in the annual tradition.

Concerns over new wave

High public mobility has raised concerns over the possibility of another wave of COVID-19 transmission, as Indonesia's previous infection spikes usually occurred following a long holiday period when people travel and gather with their relatives.

The country saw its worst run of infections in July of last year, six weeks after millions of people participated in the annual mudik to celebrate Idul Fitri despite a prevailing travel ban. This was considered to have exacerbated the spread of the Delta variant across the nation, with COVID-19 cases spiking 374 percent.

High public mobility during last year's Christmas and New Year's holiday – with some 5.8 million people traveling across the country – fueled the spread of the highly contagious Omicron variant, triggering COVID-19's third wave in Indonesia.

Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin has expressed optimism that high mobility during the upcoming Idul Fitri holiday would not cause another wave of infections.

"Based on our observations, the main cause of a surge of infections is not [long] holidays but the emergence of new variants [of concerns]. I'm sure we'll not see another wave of infections after Idul Fitri, but we must pray that there will not be another [dangerous] new variant emerging in the future," Budi told a seminar on Wednesday.

While the BA.2 subvariant of Omicron has caused an uptick in cases in some European and Asian countries, Indonesia has yet to see a similar increase, he said.

Epidemiologist Dicky Budiman of Griffith University, Australia, said the spread of the subvariant in Indonesia was still in its early stages, so it would be difficult to conclude at the moment whether or not it would cause a spike in infections.

 

"The good news is that because BA.2 is a subvariant, it's very similar to Omicron, so most people who have contracted Omicron would have immunity against it. The current vaccines, which have been proven effective against Omicron, would also be quite effective for BA.2," Dicky said.

However, he added that there was still a possibility that high public mobility during the Idul Fitri holiday would cause another surge in COVID-19 cases, especially considering the fact that some 15 percent of Indonesia's population still does not have immunity against COVID-19.

"The government's latest seroprevalence survey found that some 86.6 percent of Indonesians had developed coronavirus antibodies, which means that around 15 percent, or 40 million people, still don't have immunity against the disease," he said.

However, he believed that the surge of cases would not be as dramatic as last year, as most patients would be asymptomatic, so they would very likely not get tested for COVID-19.