TNI, Police Join Hands to Reinforce PPKM Mikro

Press statement after a limited meeting on COVID-19 Handling, Monday (21/6) (Photo: Rahmat/PR)

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has ordered the Central Government, regional governments, the Indonesian National Defense Forces (TNI) and the National Police (Polri) to join hands to curb COVID-19 transmission, which has seen a surge in the past few weeks.

“We really have to do our best. One example is the strengthening of the four pillars, namely the village / sub-district head, head of the community health center (puskesmas), the military village supervisory officer (babinsa), and the Police’s security and public order officer (bhabinkamtibmas). Those four elements have a strong function to carry out prevention measures, handling, fostering, and supporting the implementation of micro-scale public activity restrictions (PPKM Mikro),” said TNI Commander Marshal Hadi Tjahjanto after attending a Limited Meeting on Handling the COVID-19 Pandemic, Monday (21/6).

According to Hadi, support for strengthening the implementation of PPKM Mikro starts from the smallest unit, namely the neighborhood units (RT) and the community units (RW).

“The role of the RT Heads is very helpful, assisted by the village midwife, by the babinsa, and the bhabinkamtibmas to identify positive cases in the area. After identifying, the RT / RW will be able to carry out isolation,” he said.

Hadi went on to say that the RT / RW should also be able to separate residents based on the results of tracing.

Residents who are confirmed to test positive for COVID-19 and show symptoms, he added, can be referred to the hospital, while those with no symptoms can be isolated either independently or centrally.

“Independent isolation and centralized isolation will have their own SOPs [Standard Operating Procedures] so that villages will also have centralized isolation which will be supported by the Village Fund,” he added.

In the meantime, Chief of the National Police General Listyo Sigit Prabowo explained the various efforts to strengthen the PPKM Mikro that have been carried out by the TNI-Polri to reduce the daily rate of COVID-19 cases, especially in the areas that have seen a spike in the number of cases such as Riau province, Kudus regency, Bangkalan regency, and Capital Jakarta.

In Riau province, he added, the TNI-Polri are strengthening testing and tracing, as well as separating people who need self-isolation at home or centralized self-isolation.

For people who are self-isolating, the TNI-Polri also help distribute medicines and social assistances, he said.

“The number of new cases in Riau Province has dropped from 813 to 313 and we will continue to take those measures to reduce the daily number of cases to a minimum,” he said.

Meanwhile, to deal with the surge in COVID-19 cases in Kudus regency, Listyo said that the TNI-Polri have also reinforce the PPKM Mikro by increasing the number of TNI and Polri personnel to carry out testing, tracing, and guarding activities in village areas.

These activities, he added, will continue until next week.

“We have deployed 600 TNI-Polri personnel to carry out PPKM Mikro reinforcement in villages, strengthen testing and tracing activities, and separate those who must self-isolate at home and those who carry out centralized self-isolation,” he said.

Listyo added that in Kudus regency there are currently several centralized self-isolation places available.

“From the existing figures, the daily cases can be reduced now from around 400 in one day to 183,” he said, adding that in Bangkalan regency the TNI-Polri also strengthened tracing, testing as well as regional security and additional personnel were deployed in four sub-districts and also border areas.

“The Government hopes that after maximum testing and tracing, treatment activities can be carried out optimally. Thus, the involvement of community leaders to raise awareness to the public is crucial,” he said.

Just like in those regencies, Listyo said that the strengthening of PPKM Mikro is also carried out in Jakarta, where the daily increase in cases currently exceeds four thousand. He stressed that strengthening PPKM Mikro, especially in terms of tracing and testing, would potentially increase the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19.

For this reason, he appealed the local governments to cooperate in realizing the 31 areas used for integrated self-isolation activities.

“This includes areas in Nagrak, Pasar Rumput, and other places including, if necessary, hotels that can be prepared to become self-isolation places because this is necessary when tracing activities are carried out,” he said.

In his press statement, the National Police Chief also underscored that the police would enforce the law against violations in areas where restrictions have been in place.

“Public places that exceed the operating hours will be closed and we will also apply sanctions in accordance with the regulations that has been implemented,” he said, while appealing to regional governments to disseminate information on risk zoning areas to the public so that the PPKM Mikro can be enforced based on zoning. (FID/MAY/UN) (EST/EP)