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JAKARTA – Indonesia is caught in a blame game as Covid-19 cases rise.
The government has blamed it on people’s failure to adhere to safe protocols, but critics say the government has prioritized resurrecting the economy rather than dealing with the pandemic.
Much of the anger against the government has been directed at Health Minister Terawan Agus Putranto.
Thousands of Indonesians have signed an online petition calling for his removal because he “failed” to stop the increase in cases.
So far, around 40,000 people have signed the petition that was posted on the Change.org website on September 30 by a coalition of civil society groups, academics and social organizations.
“From the beginning, Health Minister Terawan has taken this outbreak lightly. His handling (of the pandemic) is not serious,” the coalition wrote.
They demanded that President Joko Widodo replace the minister with someone more competent.
Dr. Irma Hidayana, one of the organizers of the petition, told The Straits Times that more than 250 health workers had succumbed to the disease due to a lack of protective equipment.
As of Tuesday (October 6), Indonesia, the fourth most populous country in the world with 270 million inhabitants, recorded 311,176 cases of Covid-19, the second highest in Southeast Asia after the Philippines. But Indonesia has the highest death toll in the region, with 11,374 deaths.
The main reasons for the increase in cases in Southeast Asia’s largest economy include insufficient evidence, weak contact tracing and the lifting of large-scale social distancing, known locally by the acronym PSBB, in the provinces since June.
The public has criticized the government’s handling of the pandemic, saying it was more concerned with the economy than public health.
However, Joko defended the government’s response.
In a video statement last Saturday, he said: “Prioritizing 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.”
“Overcoming the pandemic is difficult, it requires hard work together, but I am sure we can do it,” he said.
“The most important thing in this situation is that we should not allow ourselves controversy and there should be no commotion.”
The National Covid-19 task force has blamed the public for ignoring health protocols like wearing masks and maintaining a safe distance.
Jakarta, a city of 11 million people, remains the worst affected in the country, with 80,979 cases and 1,802 deaths as of Tuesday. The city administration has reimposed a partial lockdown to try to contain the spread of the virus amid reports of a shortage of hospital beds to treat patients.
Other heavily affected provinces are West Java, Central Java and East Java.
Tourism-dependent Bali, whose economy has been badly affected, has had to delay a plan to receive foreign visitors in September and instead brought it to the end of this year. The resort island, which reopened to local tourists in July, has refocused efforts on this front for now.
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