JAKARTA - Epidemiologist from the University of Indonesia, Pandu Riono considers that the government's determination of the risk zoning for COVID-19 for each region (district / city) is inaccurate.
"The zoning determination based on area may not be accurate. This is because we do not limit population mobility," said Pandu in a virtual discussion on Katadata Youtube, Thursday, September 3.
Pandu gave an example of the situation in Jakarta. Five administrative cities in Jakarta, for a while still having the status of the orange zone (moderate risk of transmission) and yellow (low risk of transmission), have now become red zones.
"In the past, there was a green zone, (Thousand Islands Regency), in a matter of days, it changed because there were case reports," said Pandu.
The reason for the inaccurate zoning mapping, said Pandu, is due to the uneven distribution of testing and tracing rates in all regions in Indonesia. Only a few regions have undergone massive testing and case tracing.
Pandu also considers that decision making using zoning categorization, such as rules for opening schools, is inappropriate due to the inaccuracy of these conditions.
"It is a mistake to make a decision that in the green and yellow zones, schools can be opened because the green zone does not reflect the real thing," he said.
"So, when a decision is made, a new cluster occurs in a school or factory because they think it is safe, so they are not alert," Pandu continued.
Therefore, Pandu recommends that all people, even though they are in the green zone (no cases have been found or there are no new cases), keep implementing the 3M protocol, namely wearing masks, washing hands, and maintaining distance.
"It does not mean that I am scaring. But it does increase people to be alert. Beware that this is a silent transmission, it can happen anywhere," he added.
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