As virus cases soar, Indonesian province challenges lockdown ban

By Stanley Widianto, Bernadette Christina and Tom Allard
JAKARTA, March 27 (Reuters) - Indonesia's government has
over-ruled efforts by a province to lockdown its borders to
prevent the coronavirus from spreading, highlighting the
country's reluctance to embrace the strict containment
strategies of other nations.
President Joko Widodo's policy to curb the virus encourages
social distancing but does not tightly restrict movement across
Indonesia.
"Every country has their own characters, cultures, and
discipline level," Widodo said in a social media post on
Tuesday. "With this in mind, facing this COVID-19, we don't opt
for lockdown".
On Friday, the world's fourth most populous country
announced the biggest one-day surge in coronavirus cases, up 153
to 1,046. Indonesia has only conducted 4,336 tests, a fraction
of those done by other nations. One model by infectious disease
experts suggests there are as many as 50,000 cases.
Hundreds of thousands of residents of Jakarta, where most
confirmed cases have been clustered, have left over the past
week for their home villages to find a safe haven, or after
losing their jobs, officials said.
In response, local governments are taking matters into their
own hands.
On Thursday, the easternmost province of Papua shut its
airports, sea ports and land borders to passengers for 14 days,
alarmed that the coronavirus had reached there.
In Tegal in Central Java, the mayor this week closed 49
access points and shut public spaces until July 30 after someone
who had returned from Abu Dhabi contracted the coronavirus.
"People need to understand the policy I took. If I had to
choose, I'd rather be hated by people then let them die," the
mayor, Dedy Yon Supriyono, was quoted by CNN Indonesia as
saying.
In Papua, the decision to close its borders was taken in
consultation with the police and the military, documents showed.
Papua's four airports and sea ports were closed on Thursday
and remained shut on Friday, a government official said.
The order to reverse the airport closures reflected the
views of the "highest level of government", said Novie Riyanto,
a senior official at the Ministry of Transport, .
"We have no national lockdown. If we close the airport, it
means that we are against the direction of the president,"
Riyanto said in a video.
Ahmad Syarif Syechbubakr, a Jakarta-based analyst with Bower
Group Asia, said Widodo was "very concerned about the economic
impact of the lockdown" and his advisers saw a risk of social
unrest by millions of informal workers like street hawkers and
labourers if movement is restricted.
The University of Indonesia's Pandu Riono said authorities
must cancel the "mudik", when millions of Indonesians leave
towns for their villages at the end of the Muslim fasting month
Ramadan in May.
"Many people going home are likely to come from a place
that's infested with the virus," he said.