Gov’t to Continue Implementing PPKM to Control Pandemic

President Jokowi and First Lady Iriana inspects door-to-door vaccination. (Photo by: Presidential Secretariat/Rusman)

In a bid to bring COVID-19 pandemic under control, the Government has announced that the public activity restrictions (PPKM) will continue to be implemented across Indonesia and the policy will be regularly evaluated.

According to Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, the PPKM will be implemented in regions in the islands of Java and Bali and in the rest of the country.

In the meantime, the evaluation will be made once every two weeks to prevent hike in COVID-19 cases just like before, he added.

Luhut also emphasized that the PPKM serves as an instrument to monitor the development of the pandemic so the Government can take measures to handle the cases according to situation on the ground in each region.

“Thus, PPKM is an instrument to monitor. If we don’t monitor it, there might be another wave. We have seen conditions in several countries and we cannot afford to do the same mistake,” he said.

The Government, he added, also continues to monitor and evaluate the enforcement of health protocols before restoring public activities.

He added that based on the evaluation, many violations against health protocols are still reported in a number of regions that potentially trigger an increasing trend in COVID-19 positive cases.

“There is a significant increase in people’s mobility in several regions and tourist destination sites such as in Pangandaran Beach that was crowded with tourists from Greater Bandung areas, Tasikmalaya, and Greater Jakarta areas can potentially bring imported cases to the regions. The situation was made worse since they were not disciplined in adhering to the health protocols,” he explained.

Another violation, he added, was found at several hotels (in the beach) that breached occupancy rate set by the Government.

Therefore, Luhut urged regional governments to intensify their monitoring functions and take firm actions against the violation.

“Hotel occupancy rate in Pangandaran’s surrounding areas is almost full, violating provisions regarding hotel capacity that is allowed. Therefore, the Central Government will continue to push regional governments to fully understand the situation on the ground and to take firm actions against any kind of violations,” he said.

On that occasion, Luhut also underscored that the Government has adopted three strategies to ease the transition from pandemic to endemic, including speeding up vaccination drive, intensifying 3T (testing, tracing, and treatment) measures, and enforcing health protocols (wearing a face mask, maintaining safe distance, and washing hands) including implementing screening through PeduliLindungi app. (DND/AIT/UN)(RAS/EP)