* More than 1,850 cases in Southeast Asia
* Cases have risen 10-fold this month
* Hundreds of cases linked to mosque event in Malaysia
(Adds Singapore jump, movement restrictions.)
By Stanley Widianto and Ebrahim Harris
JAKARTA/KUALA LUMPUR, March 18 (Reuters) - Coronavirus
infections surged across Southeast Asia on Wednesday with
Indonesia's death toll jumping from five to 19 and Malaysia
warning of "a tsunami" of cases if people did not follow new
restrictions on movement.
The number of cases across the region has risen more than
10-fold this month to at least 1,900, driven in part by hundreds
of infections stemming from a mass Muslim gathering in Malaysia
just over two weeks ago.
"We beg you to stay at home and protect yourself and your
family. Please," Malaysia's health ministry posted on Twitter.
Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous country with
more than 260 million people, only announced its first two cases
of the virus on March 2 despite widespread suspicions that a
lack of testing concealed a bigger problem.
Its death toll jumped to the highest in the region on
Wednesday, while the Philippines also recorded a rise of three
fatalities to 17. Indonesia recorded its biggest daily jump in
confirmed infections, by 55 to 227 cases.
Achmad Yurianto, an Indonesian health ministry official,
said the number of cases was likely to rise further but
authorities hoped to contain the outbreak in April.
However, Halik Malik, a spokesman for the Indonesian Doctors
Association (IDI), described the increase as "extraordinary" and
said "management now needs to be pandemic management, it can't
be half-hearted like it has been".
There has been criticism of the pace of testing in Indonesia
with only 1,372 people tested by Wednesday - far below that of
much smaller neighbours.
The World Health Organization called on Southeast Asian
countries on Tuesday to "urgently scale-up aggressive measures
to combat COVID-19".
Singapore, which has won global plaudits for measures to
contain the virus, announced its biggest daily jump - up 47
cases, most of them people coming from abroad. All visitors will
face 14 days in self-quarantine, it said.
As Malaysia imposed two-weeks of restrictions on movement,
it also announced a further 117 infections. That brought it to
790 cases, although it has so far had only two deaths.
"We have a slim chance to break the chain of COVID-19
infections," Noor Hisham Abdullah, director-general of Health
Malaysia, said in a Facebook post.
"Failure is not an option here. If not, we may face a third
wave of this virus, which would be greater than a tsunami, if we
maintain a "so what" attitude."
MOSQUE EVENT
Nearly two-thirds of the infections in Malaysia stem from a
mosque event in Kuala Lumpur from Feb. 27 to March 1 attended by
pilgrims from Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Cambodia
and elsewhere.
Thousands of Muslim pilgrims from across Asia gathered in
Indonesia on Wednesday for a similar event scheduled for this
week despite fears it could also spread the virus. "We are more afraid of God," one of the organisers, Mustari
Bahranuddin, told Reuters, when asked about the risk of
participants spreading the virus at the event in Gowa in
Indonesia's province of South Sulawesi.
"Because everyone's human, we fear illnesses, death," he
said. "But there's something more than the body, which is our
soul."
Malaysia has now shut its borders for travellers, restricted
internal movement, closed schools and universities and ordered
non-essential businesses to stay shut for two weeks.
Hours before the restrictions began in Malaysia, thousands
of people queued at bus stations to return to their home towns.
Hordes of Malaysians who commute daily to Singapore for work
crossed the border to spend the next two weeks in Singapore.
"Mass gatherings at bus terminals and then folks going all
over the country from the active COVID-19 area - are we not
potentially spreading it nationwide?" Malaysian physician
Christopher Lee asked on Twitter.
The Malaysian restrictions are among the toughest in
Southeast Asia, although the Philippines has quarantined about
half its 107 million population
Thailand has announced the closure of schools, bars,
cinemas, cockfighting arenas and other entertainment centres.
Indonesian police have ordered retailers to ration purchases
of staple foods to contain panic buying.
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