Gov’t Won’t Disclose Covid-19 Patients’ Origin Countries: Gov’t Spokesperson
Government Spokesperson for coronavirus related matters Achmad Yurianto.
Government Spokesperson for coronavirus related matters Achmad Yurianto, who is also the Director General for Disease Prevention and Control of the Ministry of Health, said that the name and the country of origins of foreign citizens who has tested positive for Covid-19 will not be disclosed.
“We got complaint from an embassy on the case related to the Covid-19. Some people yelled at foreign citizens, saying that they are virus carriers,” Yuri said at the Presidential Office, Jakarta, Tuesday (10/3).
He added that the Government has informed the embassy on its citizen who have tested positive for coronavirus and the embassy has also communicated with the patients.
Yuri said that communities play a strategic role in combatting coronavirus. “Contact tracing is important to find other suspects, so we can immediately conduct isolation process to prevent transmission of the virus in the community,” Yuri said.
He went on to say that 19 cases of coronavirus have been found after the tracing process and there were also some imported cases. “It means that we believe that the transmission actually occurred abroad and after arriving in this country, they got sick,” he said.
When the contact is limited to the family, he added, it is usually not identified as a cluster, but if the contact comes from a number of people, this will be pursued as one cluster.
Yuri said that several examinations should be conducted before declaring a person is a patient under surveillance, and then the patient will be isolated after the person tested positive.
“We often find cases with minimal symptoms. Therefore, we will also increase tracing efforts. Now the regional Health Offices are conducting massive tracing measures,” Yuri added.
On that occasion, Yuri also said that patient number 06 has tested negative for coronavirus, based on the examination on the 5th day.
“It means that we are still waiting for the second negative examination in the next two days. After the first negative test result, we will wait two days later. If it’s still negative, then the patient will be released from the hospital,” he explained.
Yuri further explained that the patient number 06 is a crew member of Diamond Princess Cruise Ship. The patient has been informed about self-isolation, and to temporarily avoid contact with other people.
“It means that he has to wear a mask and he should maintain distance of at least two meters from other people,” he said, adding that the patient should also conduct self-monitoring, to monitor symptoms in the body, including cough or dyspnea.
Yuri went on to say that the patient number 14 has also tested negative on the 3rd day. “After the tracing, it turned out that the patient number 14 had been sick at his home a few days before. This then becomes a sub-cluster that we traced, because he has been sick for two days at home and he has tried to seek treatment by buying his own medication,” he said.
The current conditions of the two patients, he added, are good. In the next two days, if the tests reaffirm negative results, the patient will be released to carry out self-isolation in their respective houses.
“There are more results that we are waiting for but generally the clinical conditions of the patients are good. What we are waiting for is actually Case number 01, which until now still tests positive even though it has entered the 7th day,” he added. (TGH/EN)
Translated by: Ridwan Ibadurrohman
Reviewed by: Yuyu Mulyani
