Luhut 'Walking' To Bali To Directly Monitor The Handling Of COVID-19: 91 Percent Have Been Vaccinated But Positive Cases Are Still High

Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan. (Photo: Instagram @luhut,pandjaitan)

JAKARTA - The Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment as well as the Coordinator of the Java-Bali PPKM Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan visited Bali, Thursday 12 August, to directly monitor efforts to deal with COVID-19 on the Island of the Gods.

"I visited Bali again today with the Minister of Health and the Minister of Home Affairs to see firsthand the anomaly of cases that occurred. Because I read and saw reports that almost 91 percent of Balinese people had received the first injection of vaccine, but the number of active cases is still quite high and the death rate is also high. quite worrying," he said in a post on his personal Instagram account @luhut.pandjaitan, quoted from Antara, Friday, August 13.

Luhut said he visited a number of isolation centers to see how effective the facilities were. According to him, based on observations in the field, there are still many people who do not want and find it difficult to be invited into centralized isolation.

In fact, centralized isolation serves to separate those infected with COVID-19 to avoid transmission to families who are still healthy.

"I will tell you a little about my experience on how to protect families from exposure to this virus by more or less following the method applied in centralized isolation. I also tell them to really take advantage of centralized isolation facilities, let's invite sick relatives and relatives to separate themselves in order to receive treatment until healed," he said.

Luhut also appealed to the Balinese people and religious leaders to prepare strict protocols such as mandatory PCR/H-1 antigen tests and limited participants to a maximum of 15 people during traditional and religious ceremonies. This is done so as not to have the potential to create new clusters of transmission.

"That way, tourists will still see Bali as a safe and comfortable tourist destination when this pandemic is over," he said.

Luhut also asked the Pangdam, Kapolda and the Bali Provincial Government to jointly support and unite in accelerating this step in order to break the spread of the COVID-19 chain on the Island of the Gods.

The Deputy Chairperson of the Committee for Handling COVID-19 and National Economic Recovery (KPC PEN) said that the COVID-19 pandemic cannot be avoided not only by the people of Indonesia, but also by the world community.

Therefore, he reminded that one thing that can be done right now is to deal with it with proper preparation, such as the discipline of applying 3M and carefully.