Tourists stranded in Bali after holiday island goes into lockdown after two COVID-19 deaths
Australians are among the thousands of tourists left behind in Bali after the holiday island went into lockdown.
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Thousands of tourists stranded on the holiday island of Bali are now on lock down as the island closes for business.
Bali’s Governor said that security guards from villages – known as pecalang – will patrol the streets and demand proof from anyone outside.
The only acceptable reason is to shop for urgent supplies or seek medical help.
Villages and towns have been told not to build road blocks or other barriers to their territories so that emergency transport has clear access to roads at all times.
Bali has reported just nine positive cases of COVID-19 and two deaths while Indonesia is set to pass 1000 cases with a death toll of 55 people, the highest in South-East Asia.
“There are an additional 103 new positive cases from March 25 with 78 cases of death,” said Mr Achmad Yurianto, the government spokesman for COVID-19 mitigation.
Two hospitals in Bali have called for donations of disinfectant spray, medical gloves, surgical gowns, N95 masks, surgical masks, isotonic drinks and vitamin C supplements, revealing how woefully prepared the island is to handle a mass infection.
London’s Centre for Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases has suggested that Indonesia, which has a population of 275 million and is the world’s most populist Muslim nation, has closer to 250,000 positive cases.
This model places Indonesia in league with Iran.
President Joko (Jokowi) Widodo has rejected plans to lock down Jakarta and its 10 million residents.
Ramadan, a month-long religious festival that starts on April 23, is a time when Muslims return to their towns and villages en-masse.
As international borders slammed shut and fleets of commercial aircraft were grounded, nearly 3000 tourists descended on Indonesia’s Immigration office in Bali seeking emergency visa extensions so they could remain on the island.
Given the stark choice of risking not having an official visa or risk infection, Aussies stayed away in droves.
Only 20 Australians applied for the ‘humanitarian’ visa extension that replaced the usual $100-a-day visa ‘overstay’ fine.
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Nick Boynton, from Brisbane, said there were about 1000 people in the crush during his visit to the immigration office.
“We queued from about 7.30am and about half an hour later staff told us to go to a table outside to collect and fill in some forms. By this time there were about 300 people waiting.
Naturally, there was a stampede to that table. What do the immigration people think is happening? Do they all want us to contract the virus and the number of people arriving was surging by the minute. There were about 1000 people in one small area by the time I left.
This is no way to handle the situation at all,” he said.
Indonesia’s Immigration has now established an automatic visa extension system that no longer requires people to visit the office.
The Bali lockdown is in place until March 30, but will likely be extended.
Originally published as Tourists stranded in Bali after holiday island goes into lockdown after two COVID-19 deaths