Epidemiologist: Is It Okay To Extend The Transitional PSBB, As Long As The COVID-19 Test Doesn't Go Down

Illustrations (Irfan Meidianto / VOI)

JAKARTA - The transitional PSBB period in DKI Jakarta has been officially extended. In fact, there are fears of a spike in COVID-19 cases after 2 weeks of long holidays at the end of October.

Epidemiologist from the University of Indonesia, Tri Yunis Miko Wahyono accepted the extension of this transitional PSBB, but don't let this decrease the number of COVID-19 tests.

"The transitional PSBB is okay to be extended. But, don't relax everything. The specimens being examined are now decreasing. In fact, don't let the test decrease," said Miko to VOI, Monday, November 9.

Miko considered, at this time, the COVID-19 Handling Task Force, both central and regional, seemed to have allowed a decrease in the number of COVID-19 tests.

Prior to the joint leave from 28 October to 1 November, the number of specimens examined in one day in Indonesia has been able to reach more than 40 thousand tests. However, after a long holiday, the number of tests within a few days was less than 30 thousand. Then, the number of tests again increased but did not reach 40 thousand.

"This is the problem. The current number of COVID-19 tests is decreasing. So, the cases seem to have decreased. In fact, there is a potential increase in cases after the long holiday," said Miko.

The decline in COVID-19 testing, said Miko, was based on weaker tracing efforts for people who have had close contact with current positive cases.

"Since the PSBB in April, their target is that one case is traced to 20 people. Now, based on the data from the Task Force, currently there are only 5 to 10 people tracing from one case. Some are even less than that," he said.

If the tracing rate decreases, Miko is worried that the death rate in COVID-19 cases will increase. Because, if the tracking of cases is small, there will be many cases of people without symptoms (OTG) that go undetected.

"The increase in cases is slowing down. However, it is sad that many cases are not detected. As a result, the death rate could increase because many of them are infected with patients who have comorbidities or comorbidities," Miko explained.

Previously, DKI Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan extended the transitional PSBB period, starting from November 9 to 22.

Anies said that there was a decrease in active cases of COVID-19 by 55.5 percent over the past 14 days, namely 12,481 on October 24 to 8,026 on November 7, 2020.

The number of cumulative reports of positive confirmed cases also shows a trend of slowing up every two weeks. On November 7, 2020, positive confirmed cases in Jakarta totaled 111,201, an increase of 9.87 percent compared to the report two weeks earlier, October 24, which was 100,220.

"From these data, it can be seen that the increase in the accumulation of positive confirmation cases in DKI Jakarta every two weeks shows a downward trend. This means that transmission is still in Jakarta but has slowed down every two weeks during this transitional PSBB," explained Anies.