Gov’t Formulates Health Protocol to Prepare ‘New Normal’

Minister of National Development Planning (PPN) / Head of National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) Suharso Monoarfa has said that the Government is currently designing a safe and productive health protocol to protect the public from corona virus.

“The WHO provides several indicators to be obeyed by all countries in the world in order to adjust their normal life called ‘a new normal’ with COVID-19 until we find a vaccine,” Suharso said.

The indicators are as follows:

First, how to stop or reduce transmission as many as possible. According to Suharso, one of the way to do this is through Large-scale Social Restrictions (PSBB).

“Some public policies are taken by the Government, while continue to protect the face by using masks,” said the Minister.

Second, using health system indicators to show the capacity of the health system in respond to COVID-19.

“So if there is a new transmission or patient, the system should show the availability of beds in hospital. The number of new cases must be smaller than the capacity of health services available,” he said.

The capacity of health services, according to Suharso, should be 60% of the total health capacity. For example, if a hospital has 100 beds, then 60 beds are for COVID-19 patients.

“Now, the number of new patients each day must be below 60. That is called a measurable health system capacity that can be used to decide whether the Government should ease the restrictions or not,” he explained.

Third, to conduct a massive test to group of potential people who are most likely to get infected by the virus.

“Currently, Indonesia massive test is among the lowest in the world. We have only reached 743 tests per 1 million people, or 202,936 people tested so far,” he said.

With the current capacity, the Minister continued, Indonesia has to increase the test capacity to 10,000 to 12,000 per day.

“Hopefully in the near future we can reach 12 thousand tests per day or higher, “he said.

The protocol, according to Suharso, must be promoted and campaigned by the press so that the people can prepare themselves to start a new normal life.

“The campaign is about how to live with the new normal, how to behave in restaurants, airport, seaport, train station, and anywhere where we may have potential contact with other people,” he explained. (FID/EN)

Translated by: Estu Widyamurti
Reviewed by: Yuyu Mulyani