If COVID-19 Cases Continue To Soar, The COVID-19 Task Force Asks The Government To Abolish Year-End Long Holidays

Illustrated. (Irfan Meidianto / VOI)

JAKARTA - Chairman of the Task Force for Handling COVID-19 Doni Monardo said that his party would monitor the progress of the increase in COVID-19 cases over the next week. This is to ensure a spike in cases after a few weeks of the long holiday at the end of October, although in the last three days a surge in cases has been seen.

"The Task Force is still following the developments for the next week, is the impact of this long holiday significant for additional cases, or does the community implement a safe and comfortable holiday without crowds," Doni said in a press conference broadcast on Youtube BNPB Indonesia, Sunday, November 15. .

If the COVID-19 cases do not experience a significant increase and the COVID-19 Task Force can still control the handling of COVID-19, then the Task Force will still provide input to the government to be able to continue the long holidays of Christmas and New Year 2021.

"But when the cases increase as in the last August and September period, the recommendation is to shorten the year-end long holiday or eliminate it altogether," said Doni.

Currently, Doni said that there was a potential spike in cases, such as what happened during the long holiday in mid-August.

"In the last two weeks, RSD Wisma Atlet has increased, especially in the isolation room, from 32 percent to 53 percent, as well as the ICU rooms at 98 referral hospitals in Jakarta which are now at 68 percent filled," said Doni.

Even though there is an increase, however, the increase in cases has not been as significant as what happened in September. He explained that in the last September period, the filling of COVID-19 treatments was at 83 percent.

"Of course we hope that the treatment room, ICU, and isolation rooms will not be full. One thing that needs to be done is to increase discipline not to carry out various kinds of events that cause crowds," he explained.

For information, an increase in COVID-19 cases on a national scale has appeared in recent days. On November 12, the increase in new cases was 4,173. Then, on September 13, new cases reached a record of 5,444 cases. Then, 5,272 new cases on September 14 and 4,106 cases on September 15.