Indonesia plans tougher mobility rules, if no full public lockdown, virus death toll could soar to over 140,000 by May

JAKARTA, Mar 30, 2020, SCMP. Indonesian President Joko Widodo said on Monday he planned stricter rules on mobility and social distancing as a study presented to the government warned of a risk of more than 140,000 coronavirus deaths by May without tougher action, South China Morning Post reported.

Medical experts have said the world’s fourth most populous country must impose tighter movement restrictions as known cases of the illness have gone from zero in early March to 1,414, with 122 deaths.

Most infections in Indonesia have been concentrated in and around the capital Jakarta. The city of 10 million people has declared a state of emergency which shut down schools and public entertainment, but so far there has been no full public lockdown which the president has been reluctant to impose.

“I’m (now) ordering large-scale social limits, physical distancing needs to be done more sternly, more disciplined, and effectively,” Widodo told a cabinet meeting.

Widodo has encouraged social distancing but questioned whether Indonesians have the discipline for full lockdowns, in contrast with Southeast Asian nations such as the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand.

But he appears to have reconsidered this approach after public health experts presented a prediction model to Indonesia’s planning agency Bappenas on Friday underlining a need for stronger intervention to prevent a rapid rise in cases and deaths.

The model said Indonesia could instigate three stages of intervention: mild, moderate, and high. The latter would include very significant levels of testing and making physical distancing mandatory. With mild intervention, which includes optional physical distancing and limiting public crowds, the researchers from the University of Indonesia said the virus death toll could soar to over 140,000 among over 1.5 million cases by May.