Bappenas Helps Calculation of R0, Rt Rate

Minister of National Development Planning Suharso Monoarfa delivers press statement after joining a Limited Meeting on Wednesday (27/5). (Photo by: PR/Rahmat)

In a bid to reform national health system, the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) has announced it will assist COVID-19 Task Force in calculating the R0 (basic reproductive number for COVID-19) and Rt (virus’s actual transmission rate at a given time) rate.

“The calculation will be based on the Task Force’s data and an application called BLC (Bersatu Lawan Covid-19/United Against COVID-19),” Minister of National Development Planning / Head of National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) Suharso Monoarfa said in a press statement on Wednesday (27/5).

The agency, he added, has received the data from Professor Wiku, Head of COVID-19 Task Force Expert Team.

In addition, data cleansing has been conducted by the Cyber Body ad National Encryption Agency (BSSN), which is followed by a random crosscheck by Regional Development Planning Board (Bappeda) and health offices to data in regencies/cities.

The Minister went on to say that the Bappenas will also establish a comprehensive national health system for other diseases and improve health facilities capacity by coordinating with all health offices and Bappeda offices throughout Indonesia.

The agency has also conducted several meeting with Ministry of Health, he added.

Suharso also pointed out that since there is delay in the report of tests for COVID-19, the result of R0 will not be in real time, adding that the assistance from the Bappenas is based on suggestion from the World Health Organization (WHO) according to three criteria: epidemiology, healthcare system, and surveillance.

On top of that, he added, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo always urges for massive testing and to date, from 264,098 tests, 23,165 confirmed cases are found.

“I need to reiterate that Indonesia’s total COVID-19 tests per 1 million people has increased from 743 tests per 1 million people in 19 May to 967 tests per 1 million people,” he said, adding that the increase is not enough because the WHO suggested that 1 test  should be conducted per 1,000 people per week.

The Minister cited the example of Jakarta, which is home to 10 million people. The city, he added, must conduct 10,000 tests per week and since the outbreak was declared 12 weeks ago on 2 March, Jakarta must have conducted 120,000 test to date.

“In fact, the number of test is more than 120,000, to be exact 132,000 tests in which 3.100 tests were carried out each day in Jakarta. The remaining 140,000 tests were conducted outside Jakarta and the number must be increased,” he stated.

The Minister went on to say that surveillance is really important, thus patients under surveillance (PDP) and people under monitoring (ODP) must be tested earlier so that the Government can know the number of confirmed cases immediately.

“We will intensify tests to the PDP and ODP. After the test, their status will change (from ODP/PDP to negative/positive cases). As for the PDPs, they must be tested as least 2 times. The second test will be conducted after 14 days to confirm their disease,” he explained.

In addition, Bappenas, he added, has also calculated the spread of virus and preparedness of public healthcare system. Jakarta is among the provinces which have been able to control the spread of the virus and have great health system that is determined based on the number of hospital beds.

Bappenas has also created a dashboard for the ‘new normal’ scenario where the public can see the R0 and Rt rate of each region. Nevertheless, the agency has to work on the surveillance data to provide a reliable data figure, he added.

“Once the three data is established, we can calculate the Rt based on bottom up analyses. If the surveillance rate is good, health system in that region must also be good and the R0 rate will be good. On the other hand, if the R0 rate is good, we still must check the condition of healthcare system and surveillance,” he said, adding that there are regions with low R0 rate because they conducted only a limited number of tests. (FID/EN)

Translated by : Rany Anjany
Reviewed by: M. Ersan Pamungkas