Coronavirus: Medics and clerics push Joko Widodo to lock down Indonesia

Indonesia is on the cusp of a ­belated lockdown of Greater Jakarta amid fears of an explosion of COVID-19 cases during Ramadan.

The debris of the charter Westwind 24 that crashed at Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport on Sunday night, killing all eight on board. Picture: Getty Images

Indonesia is on the cusp of a ­belated lockdown of Greater Jakarta amid fears of an explosion of COVID-19 cases during April’s holy fasting month of Ramadan and threats from medical workers that they will stop treating novel coronavirus patients if they can’t get protective gear.

Indonesia has one of the highest ratios of medical worker deaths in Asia, alongside The Philippines, where at least three health workers were among eight killed when a charter flight crashed just after take-off from Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport on Sunday night.

The Westwind 24 twin engine jet, run by local charter Lionair — not related to Indonesia’s Lion Air — was headed for Japan’s Haneda airport and believed to have been conducting a medical evacuation of at least one COVID-19 patient.

“Eight passengers consisting of a flight medic, a nurse, doctor, three flight crew, one patient and its companion were on board,” Philippines Red Cross chairman Richard Gordon said.

Manila has been in lockdown since March 16 and the entire country placed under a state of emergency as the government tries to stem the virus’s spread.

But Indonesian President Joko Widodo — whose mother died last week — has for weeks resisted pressure from provincial governors, medical professionals and public health experts to impose a quarantine around Greater Jakarta, an area of 30 million people and the epicentre of the outbreak.

On Monday, he looked poised to reverse that position after mounting pressure at the weekend, first from a consortium of medical associations that warned its members would “temporarily” refuse to treat COVID-19 patients if the government could not provide protective clothing, then from Indonesia’s most powerful Islamic body, the Ulema Council (MUI).

Indonesia has confirmed 1285 COVID-19 cases and 114 deaths, at least 11 of those medical workers.

The MUI on Sunday added to the growing call for a lockdown ahead of Idul Fitri in May, the most important Muslim holiday in which 20 million Indonesians would normally head home.

Jokowi, as he is know, acknowledged the dangers of such a mass movement on Monday, urging provincial governments to take “stronger steps” to prevent people returning to their villages, and to implement social safety net programs for informal workers who have lost their income as a result of government advice to “work, study and pray from home”.

“This must be done and implemented immediately,” he said. “In the last eight days, there were 876 buses that carried 14,000 people from (Greater Jakarta) to west, central and east Java and Yogyakarta,” the President said.

“This is not even counting those who took other forms of mass transport or private vehicles.”

West Java governor Ridwan Kamil told The Australian the central government was preparing for a “lockdown of some sort … but we need to move quickly and ­decide quickly … There is no other way to control the spread of the disease. We need to be serious about it and we need serious, strict measures.”

The West Java and Jakarta administrations have both submitted lockdown proposals that Indo­nesia’s co-ordinating minister for political, legal and security affairs, Mahfud Mohammad, said would be discussed on Tuesday.

“We are looking at what The Netherlands is doing right now. It’s called lockdown there while we call it regional quarantine, so ­people can walk around (but) can’t be close to each other,” Mr Mahfud said late on Sunday.

 “Each region will decide what sort of restrictions will apply, whether students must study at home, work from home and so on … it depends on the local government.”

 Jakarta city has already imposed emergency measures including school closures, limited shopping and public transport hours. At the weekend, police and transport officials conducted drills on how to limit the movement of people in and out of the city.

Mr Ridwan said Jakarta and all West Java districts neighbouring the capital should be locked down, however. “As of now, we are doing our best to discipline people, to ­advise people … but if we apply a lockdown to certain areas, then we have the authority to tell people to stay indoors.”