Coronavirus: Australian envoy to Indonesia Gary Quinlan withdrawn from Jakarta amid virus fears

After appealling to expats to get out ‘while you can’, Australia’s ambassador to Indonesia has been withdrawn on medical advice.

Gary Quinlan in January meets 12-year-old Indonesian environmental activist Aeshninna Azzahra. Picture: Graham Crouch

Australia’s ambassador to Indonesia is being withdrawn from Jakarta on medical advice because of the threat from the coronavirus, underscoring the government’s concern over our most important neighbour’s ability to cope with the pandemic.  

Gary Quinlan, 69, has been ordered home as a precautionary measure, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said in a brief statement, after just over two years in Jakarta. 

He leaves this week but will continue to serve as ambassador remotely from Canberra while his deputy, Allaster Cox, will remain in the country. 

Australia’s largest overseas mission has been stripped to a skeleton staff in recent weeks with more than half of its staff, their families, and most of its contractors ordered back to Australia. Consulates in Surabaya, Makassar and Bali are also now being run with a small number of essential staff.  

“Australia’s embassy and consulates in Indonesia are resourced to continue to serve Australia’s interests, including by providing consular support to Australians at this challenging time,” the DFAT statement released on Thursday night said.

Urgent appeals

Mr Quinlan, a career diplomat who has previously served in Singapore and the UN, has been issuing increasingly urgent appeals to Australians still in Indonesia to leave the country “while you still can”.

“Think about your and your family’s health. Critical medical care in Indonesia is significantly below Australian standards,” he urged expatriate businesspeople in one recent message.

“The Australian Government cannot guarantee you access to medical services or a safe exit if the situation in Indonesia gets worse.”

Despite the appeals, some 7000 Australian permanent residents are believed to still be in Indonesia and as many as 3000 tourists.   

Already one Australian citizen is believed to have died in a Jakarta hospital from COVID-19. Another, who was recently treated for the virus in one of Jakarta’s best private hospitals, has told The Weekend Australian he saw intensive care unit doctors and nurses with no protective clothing, and untested patients dying of respiratory failure.

Vast undersestimate of cases

Indonesia now has 3293 confirmed COVID-19 infections and a death toll of 280, though both figures are believed to be a vast underestimate of the true size of the country’s outbreak given the country still has some of the lowest testing rates in the world  

Recent mathematical modelling by University of Indonesia researchers suggests Indonesia already has one million COVID-19 cases and that 120,000 people could die by the end of May. The research team had previously warned the death toll could be up to 240,000 but has amended those predictions to account for recent measures taken by the government.

The government is widely seen to have bungled preparations for the pandemic and is now playing catch up as the country’s under-resourced health system already shows signs of severe strain.

But President Joko Widodo has resisted imposing the sort of lockdown restrictions enforced in neighbouring Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines because of concerns over how that would impact tens of millions of poor Indonesians who live hand to mouth.

He has also refused to ban next month’s mass homecoming for the Muslim Idul Fitri holiday, known as Mudik, in which more than 20 million Indonesians return to their villages  

Instead he has restricted transport services and offered unspecified cash incentives to encourage people to stay where they are.