Beware Of Mobility During Christmas And New Year's Holidays

Illustration - Prospective passengers are waiting for the bus departure schedule at Kalideres Terminal, Jakarta, Sunday (12/20/2020) or the end of 2020. BETWEEN PHOTO/Fauzan/foc.

JAKARTA - An Epidemiologist from Andalas University Defriman Djafri emphasized that the government needs to be aware of the high mobility carried out by the community even though the Implementation of Restrictions on Community Activities (PPKM) will not be applied evenly when entering the long Christmas and New Year holidays.

"From the other side, I see that because PPKM is not carried out evenly for this level of equity, what I see is when people steal starts in using their time," said Defriman when contacted in Jakarta, Tuesday, December 7.

Responding to the cancellation of the implementation of PPKM level 3 distribution throughout Indonesia, he explained that this could not be done because the restrictions applied had to be based on the results of a comprehensive evaluation held by each province.

However, the main thing that must be considered is community mobility which can have an impact two to three weeks after the peak of mobility in the Christmas and New Year period occurs.

According to him, although the government has implemented a number of restrictions during the Christmas and New Year holidays, the risk of people traveling since December 19, 2021 or after January 2, 2022 is very likely due to the high enthusiasm for going home or celebrating the big day with family.

"That's what needs to be anticipated in my opinion. Indeed, what needs to be considered is that even if for example there are no restrictions, the movement will still be massive and high at the end of the year," he said as quoted by Antara.

Therefore, if you look at the previous spike in cases, the government needs to tighten and control the locations suspected to be the epicenters where many positive cases of COVID-19 were found.

Defriman hopes that the tightening that will be implemented can prevent the high mobility carried out by the community as well as in anticipation of preventing the entry of new variants of Omicron into Indonesia without being detected.

"So indeed if Jakarta as the center is not tightened or Bali too, we are afraid of high mobility. "Hopefully the spike in cases doesn't happen, so go with him because the increase was not reported at that time, but a two or three week delay after the case was high," he said.