COVID-19 Cases In Four Provinces Rise, Luhut: Everyone Must Intervene

Coordinating Minister (Menko) for Maritime Affairs and Investment Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan (Photo: Irfan Meidianto)

JAKARTA - Coordinating Minister (Menko) for Maritime Affairs and Investment Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan highlighted the increase in positive cases of COVID-19 in West Sumatra, Riau, East Kalimantan and Papua.

"The four provinces I mentioned earlier rose 7 percent from 13.4 percent at the beginning of the 9-15 September 2020 period to 20.5 percent in the 14-20 October 2020 period," said Luhut Pandjaitan at a virtual meeting on handling Covid-19, Jakarta, Wednesday, October 22nd.

Thus, Luhut asked the relevant officials to pay special attention to the four provinces. All parties must intervene to overcome this.

"I ask the Dansatgas, Menkes, Governors, Pangdam, Kapolda, please look. So I will also pay attention to these four provinces, West Sumatra, East Kalimantan, Riau and Papua," said Luhut Pandjaitan in a statement in Jakarta, Thursday.

Luhut, who is also Deputy Chair of the Policy Committee for Control of COVID-19 and National Economic Recovery, said that the involvement of the TNI-Polri in carrying out justice operations as an effort to reduce the number of COVID-19 spreads had quite an impact.

This, he said, was seen in East Java Province, which due to changes in people's behavior, the positive number of COVID-19 had decreased. This should also be emulated by these four provinces.

"This data is real time. We hope that in areas with high cases, it is done like in East Java Province. So the cooperation between the Governor, Kapolda, Pangdam, Dinkes is very important," said Luhut Pandjaitan.

The four provinces were also asked to ensure that there was a centralized quarantine system as an effort so that patients with OTG or low symptoms did not transmit to other people during independent isolation.

Furthermore, the Ministry of Health must also ensure the availability of drugs, ICU beds, and understand the clinical management of COVID-19 treatment. The Ministry of Health is also asked to check the management of the referral hospitals again.

"Then in order to ensure the availability of all medical aspects, the availability of drugs, reagents, bed capacity, and the socialization of clinical management for COVID-19 patients, it goes well," said Luhut.