Air Quality In Jakarta Worsens, Coordinating Minister For Human Development And Culture Urges Residents To Use Masks To Anticipate ARI

Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Culture (Menko PMK) Muhadjir Effendy appealed to residents to wear masks in carrying out their daily activities to anticipate acute respiratory infections (ARI) due to worsening air quality in the capital city.

"Use a mask, don't be ashamed. If the body is not healthy, wear a mask," said Muhadjir as quoted by ANTARA, Monday, August 14.

Muhadjir said the air quality, especially in DKI Jakarta, was worrying. In fact, the view of the capital city cannot be clearly seen as a result of the pollution. Jakarta when viewed from its room is covered in a pollution fog.

According to him, one of the strategic solutions to avoid pollution is moving the capital city of Nusantara (IKN). "The solution is to move to IKN. That's already a strategic solution so that it can't be discussed again," he said.

Meanwhile, regarding the use of electric vehicles, he said, this could not solve the problem of air pollution completely. "We still need a long time to really make electric vehicles the main choice, now it is substituted," he said.

Previously, President Joko Widodo said it was necessary to encourage a hybrid work system to reduce air pollution in Jabodetabek, which in the past week fell into the very poor category.

"If needed, we must dare to encourage many offices to carry out hybrid working, work from office, work from home, maybe. I don't know later from the agreement at this limited meeting, whether (hours) 7-5, 2-5, or other numbers," said Jokowi.

Jokowi said the air quality in Jabodetabek over the past week has been very bad. In the short term, he also ordered the relevant ministries and non-ministerial government agencies (K/L) to intervene so that the air quality in Jabodetabek would be better.

The intervention, continued Jokowi, is like weather engineering to provoke rain in the Jabodetabek area and implement regulations to accelerate the application of emission limits, especially in the Jabodetabek area.

Jokowi also ordered that green open spaces (RTH) be reproduced in the Jabodetabek area. He also requested that the budget for providing green open space be prepared immediately.

In the medium term, the Government will consistently implement policies to reduce the use of fossil-based vehicles and switch to mass transportation. In the long term, climate change mitigation and adaptation actions need to be strengthened.