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JAKARTA: Indonesian President Joko Widodo defended his record of fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, calling for no “controversy” or “shock” amid criticism that he is putting the economy above public health .
The video statement late on Saturday (October 3) came as the number of COVID-19 cases in the world’s fourth most populous country rose to 299,506. Its coronavirus-related death toll of 11,055 is among the highest in Asia.
The government’s handling of the pandemic since March has drawn criticism from some public health experts for prioritizing economic concerns over public health.
READ: Indonesian capital plans to double COVID-19 tests as cases rise
Recently, the Ministry of Health has come under strong criticism from volunteer groups and, in general, on social networks for what, according to them, is insufficient spending in the pandemic, insufficient protection for workers in the health and the high prices of private coronavirus tests.
“I can say that the handling of COVID in Indonesia has not been bad, in fact it has been quite good,” the president said in the statement on his official YouTube account, arguing that the total number of cases and the death toll in the country are lower than countries with comparatively large populations.
The president, known by his popular name Jokowi, defended his decision not to impose blockades across the province or city in places where cases continue to rise because he said that would have hurt people’s livelihoods.
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“Giving priority to health issues does not mean that we are sacrificing the economy, because sacrificing the economy is equivalent to sacrificing the lives of tens of millions of people,” Jokowi said.
“Overcoming the pandemic is difficult, it requires hard work together, but I’m sure we can do it,” he said. “The most important thing in this situation is that we should not make controversies and there should be no commotion.”
Southeast Asia’s largest economy will enter its first recession this year since the 1998 Asian financial crisis due to the pandemic. But the government’s worst forecast of a 1.7 percent contraction in 2020 is better than that of many economies, officials say.
The president also promised to order his ministers to improve their response to the crisis and urged people to complain or provide suggestions to the government.
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