Mahfud MD Claims Indonesia Handles COVID-19 Better than the United States in Today's Memory, April 16, 2022

JAKARTA - Today's memory, four years ago, April 16, 2022, Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal, and Security Affairs (Menkopolhukam), Mahfud MD claimed that Indonesia handled the COVID-19 pandemic better than the United States (US). He considers this success because Indonesia has the PeduliLindungi application.

Previously, the handling of the spread of the corona virus in Indonesia was far from effective. The presence of the PeduliLindungi application, moreover. An application that is able to track and trace people infected with COVID-19 is considered to violate human rights.

No country is not worried about facing the COVID-19 pandemic. The rapid transmission of the corona virus brings panic everywhere. In fact, the virus that originally appeared in Wuhan, China has begun to reach various parts of the world.

The rapid transmission made many countries unprepared to fight COVID-19. The handling steps were carried out as they were. Not to mention the world health body, WHO, which was not quick to respond to provide guidance.

The result is that the spread of the virus from Wuhan increased sharply. This condition has occurred in Indonesia since the corona virus was detected entering Indonesia since March 2020. This fact brought panic everywhere. Economic activity was disrupted. Many businesses went bankrupt.

The government has also tried all sorts of ways to break the chain of transmission of the corona virus. However, the steps taken are not effective. Later the government believed that the effective resistance to the corona was to wait for the virus and track people who were detected with the corona virus.

The government then prepared the PeduliLindungi application to track and enter public places. However, the presence of PeduliLindungi is doubted by many parties. The security of data and privacy of Indonesian people is considered trivial by the authorities.

The US State Department even considers the presence of PeduliLindungi to have the potential to violate human rights. Or what they call arbitrary interference and violations of laws related to privacy, family, home, or correspondence. The Indonesian Ministry of Health also came to dispel it.

"The accusation that this application is useless and also violates human rights (HAM) is something that is not fundamental. Let's read the original report from the US State Department carefully. The report does not accuse the use of this application of violating human rights. We ask that parties stop twisting it as if the report concluded that there was a violation," said spokesperson for the Ministry of Health, Siti Nadia Tarmizi as quoted by lamandetik.com, April 15, 2022.

The allegation of PeduliLindung violates human rights to the end of Mahfud MD. The Minister of Home Affairs firmly denied it and instead said that PeduliLindung was the key to Indonesia's success against the corona virus on April 15, 2022. The handling of COVID-19 in Indonesia is the best in the ASEAN region.

Mahfud also claimed that thanks to the PeduliLindungi handling of COVID-19 in Indonesia from the US. This means that Indonesia is able to emerge as one of the best countries in the world in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. Even though this claim is doubted by many parties.

"It must be known that Indonesia is included or is the best country in ASEAN in handling COVID. If in the world, Indonesia is included, much better than America in dealing with COVID-19."

"The US is actually at the bottom line, like Iran, Colombia, Mexico, Brazil. That's the ugliest. Indonesia is far above that. In ASEAN, Indonesia is number one," said Mahfud as quoted by lamankumparan.com, April 16, 2022.