The Government Is Too Focused On Economic Recovery, Faisal Basri Reminded The Danger Of Increasing Cases Like Iran

Indef's senior economist, Faisal Basri. (Photo by: Ministry of Communication and Information)

JAKARTA - The COVID-19 pandemic has not ended yet. Even in various countries in the world, positive cases have actually entered the second to third waves.

One of them is Iran, which had experienced a decline, but the positive cases went up out of control. Senior economist Faisal Basri reminded the government to reflect on the Iranian experience.

Faisal said the cause of the uncontrolled increase in cases in Iran was because of too much confidence or confidence in handling COVID-19. As a result, on November 15, the local government imposed a lockdown in almost all cities in Iran.

Furthermore, Faisal assessed that what Iran is currently experiencing can also happen in Indonesia. This is because the government is too focused on economic recovery. In fact, he said, the main problem is COVID-19.

"We look similar to Iran. We hope that it will not be like Iran which has experienced three waves now, because it is ignorant and too self-conscious," he said, during a virtual discussion, Thursday, November 26.

According to Faisal, the government's focus must be changed. Because, he said, it must be admitted that the main point is the economy. This is evidenced by the existence of a long holiday to encourage tourism to rise.

"For example, what? A joint holiday to encourage tourism. But it will make the tourism sector worse off and longer (recover). Hopefully not (like Iran), we must try to prevent this from happening," he said.

Faisal also warned the government to focus on handling the pandemic rather than the economy. This is because the number of active cases in Indonesia is getting higher. Even 98.2 percent of regencies / cities have also been infected and only 9 percent have not.

He gave an example, the addition of 50,000 cases initially took 116 days. But it drops to 12 days, then better yet to 15 days. But lastly, it only took 11 days to reach 500 thousand from 450 thousand cases.

"So the condition worsens. How do we predict the economy if conditions are like this? The key is in COVID-19 there is no doubt," he said.