President Jokowi Orders Bigger, More Targeted Health Protocol Campaign – Free Access

JAKARTA, KOMPAS Pandemic-19 pandemic is of growing concern because not only is the case of relatively high positive cases, the death rate from illness caused by SARS-CoV-2 virus in Indonesia is also still higher than the world average. Therefore, President Joko Widodo called for the campaign to implement the health protocol to be carried out in a more massive and targeted manner.

The instruction was conveyed by President Joko Widodo in a speech introducing a limited meeting to discuss the management of Covid-19 and the national economic recovery which was held virtually on Monday (03/08/2020).

I want the name of the health protocol, changes in people’s behavior to be really our concern. I just want to focus, maybe in two weeks we will focus on the mask-wearing campaign, said the president who attended a limited meeting at the Merdeka Palace in Jakarta.

The massive campaign regarding the implementation of health protocols is seen as important as the president sees that at present, public concerns about Covid-19 are increasing.

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The possibility of concern arises due to the high number of daily positive case findings of Covid-19. On the other hand, more and more people ignore the health protocol.

I don’t know why the atmosphere of the past few weeks has seen people able to worry about Covid-19. Either because the case is on the rise, or the public, especially the middle class and above, sees that there are still many people not obeying health protocol, the president said.

As of Sunday (02/08/2020), positive Covid-19 cases had reached 111,455 cases, an increase of 1,519 cases that day. The death rate is also still above the global average, reaching 4.7%.

Although the cure rate rose to 61.9 percent, President Jokowi recalled that there is still a lot of government duty. One of them is suppressing the rate of positive cases and the death rate due to Covid-19 by leading massive campaigns on the importance of health protocols.

More concentration

In order to be easily understood by the public, the president instructed the campaign to implement more targeted health protocols.

The first two weeks the campaign focused on conveying to the public the importance of wearing masks.

Later, the next two weeks, the campaign to keep distance or wash your hands, for example. Not mixed with hand washing, walking away, not crowding, wearing masks. So together, maybe the upper middle class can taken quickly. But, those below need one by one, the president said.

For the sake of efficiency, the former governor of DKI Jakarta requested that the implementation of the health protocol campaign be done by involving the empowerment of family well-being (PKK). I think the PKK is very effective for door to door mask business, he said.

In addition, it is also important to conduct massive media campaigns, including social media. Massive campaigns to change people’s behavior so that they no longer ignore health protocol.

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The goal of producing vaccines

Meanwhile, President of the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) Bambang Soesatyo called on the government to focus more on making Covid-19 vaccines in domestic production. Because many experts believe that Covid-19 will last a long time.

The duration of the Spanish flu can be used as a benchmark. The Spanish flu started to be rife in March 1918 and lasted until June 1920. During the time of the Covid-19 pandemic, which is still difficult to calculate, Indonesia must try to avoid depending on the need for ‘a corona vaccine, he said.

The former president of the DPR encouraged the government to focus on accelerating the realization of locally produced corona vaccines. The government must immediately take the initiative to communicate and coordinate with academics and researchers.

From what I have observed so far, a number of parts of the country have made efforts to create a corona vaccine. However, the effort was not easy as there were a number of challenges. I urge the government to immediately join the effort and help solve the problems, Bambang said.

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The challenges in question include the need for high costs for vaccine research and development, efforts to accelerate vaccine production, up to the stage of its public availability. In addition, another challenge relates to the large scale of vaccine production.

Party politician Golkar also supports efforts to inactivate the virus which is being led by a number of Indonesian companies including PT Bio Farma in collaboration with Sinovac from China, PT Kalbe Farma with Genexine from South Korea and private companies with Sinopharm from China.

Indeed, Indonesia cannot just wait for the results of research and development and vaccine production from other countries. Indonesia must be independent in the production of vaccines. In addition, Indonesia has a state-owned company that has experience in manufacturing vaccines.

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