Today's Memory, March 2, 2020: Appeals To Reduce Medical Mask Exports During The COVID-19 Pandemic

Indonesians hunt for medical masks during the COVID-19 pandemic. (ANTARA)

JAKARTA Memori hari ini, lima tahun lalu, 2 Maret 2020, Menteri Koordinator Bidang Perekonomian (Menko Perekonomian) Airlangga Hartarto punya ajian terbaru menurunkan harga mask medis yang tinggi saat pandemi COVID-19. Ia akan segera mengurangi ekspor masker ke luar negeri.

Previously. The presence of the COVID-19 pandemic made things complicated. Transmission is predicted to be massive. The victims are piled up. This condition makes people flock to buy masks. Panic in fact brings new problems. Scarcity of masks everywhere.

No country is really ready to face the COVID-19 pandemic. Indonesia, let alone. The discourse on the arrival of the virus from Wuhan is predicted to destroy everything. A person's life can be destroyed from various sides. Life is destroyed by contracting the corona virus.

Life is destroyed because the economy has plummeted. All because the corona virus can make businesses out of business and unemployment everywhere. This condition is getting worse because the public is asked to continue to survive.

The government has not confirmed the corona virus entering Indonesia. This condition makes the government not know for sure about the handling of COVID-19. The Indonesian people have speculated regarding the right handling steps in breaking the chain of the spread of the corona virus.

The most reasonable step is to equip yourself with medical masks such as medical masks and aHand sanitizer. Both items must be owned if you don't want to catch COVID-19. This narrative made the Indonesian people flock to buy masks and others in February.

As a result, some of the rarest goods on the market. The most obvious scarcity is masks. The price of masks on the market is no longer reasonable. The increase is many times over. People who panic don't get paid well immediately.

Because, they view that the corona virus can cause death. Problems arise. They with a weak economy are unable to reach it. They cannot access expensive masks. The Ministry of Health also raised their hands.

"Using any regulations, it can't be because the market will play. So efficiency will appear. If price efficiency will be rational. If it is not efficient, irrationality will appear. It's useless for us to make any regulations," said Minister of Health (Menkes), Terawan Agus Putranto as quoted on the CNBC page, February 17, 2020.

Problems arose when the government announced that the coronavirus was detected in Indonesia on March 2, 2020. Three people infected with COVID-19 were announced to the public by the government. This condition caused panic to hit all over Indonesia.

Questions related to the scarcity of masks surfaced. The narrative is certain because the people really have no other choice but to hunt masks. The announcement has just been said that the price of masks has soared sharply.

Masks containing 50 brands that are usually cheap can penetrate hundreds of thousands to less than one million. This problem immediately became the focus of the Coordinating Ministry for the Economy after several hours of the announcement of the corona virus entering Indonesia. They assess the scarcity and high cost of masks because domestic mask production is focused on exports.

For this reason, the step that will be taken is to reduce the export of masks so that the price of masks is more affordable and not rare. This effort is an important solution that will be carried out by the government in the future.

"The government will trade later, reduce mask exports," said Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Airlangga Hartanto as quoted on the tempo.co page, March 2, 2020.