Palembang City Government Temporarily Closes Tourist Attractions During The Christmas Holiday

PALEMBANG - The City Government of Palembang, South Sumatra, has temporarily closed tourist attractions on Christmas 2021 to prevent an increase in the spread of COVID-19 from public tourist visits.

"We not only prohibit ASN (State Civil Servants) from going home but also temporarily close tourist attractions that are crowded with residents, such as the Kuto Besak Fort (BKB) area", said Palembang City Regional Secretary Ratu Dewa as quoted by Antara, Friday, November 26.

According to him, the ban is as stipulated in the instruction letter from the Minister of Home Affairs (Mendagri) number 62 of 2021 which is valid from December 24, 2021, to January 2, 2022.

The regulation states that each region, including the city of Palembang, is obliged to implement community activity restriction (PPKM) level 3 to anticipate the surge in the third wave of COVID-19 cases.

In addition, he continued, by PPKM rules for level three shopping centers such as malls, restrictions were also placed on the number of visitors to a maximum of 50 percent of the total occupancy.

The Palembang City Government hopes that the implementation in the field can be in line with the prohibition.

Previously, the Acting Head of the Public Health Division of the Palembang City Health Office, Mirza Susanty, said that the current condition of the spread of COVID-19 cases had improved since the last month.

The city of Palembang is in the yellow zone or low spread with daily active cases below 10 people, so with PPKM level 3 and its derivative rules, it is hoped that the COVID-19 condition in Palembang will be better.

Meanwhile, the Head of the Surveillance and Immunization Division of the South Sumatra Health Office, Yusri, said this warning was to prevent new clusters of spreading COVID-19 from occurring because holiday destinations should be a place for people to have recreation.

"Just obey it, if the PPKM level requires immigrants to do an antigen swab test, the officers must carefully ask for the test results for the sake of mutual safety as well", he said.