Chairperson Of The DPR Banggar Asked The Government To Dare To Total PSBB, Comparing The Indonesian COVID-19 Test Losing To India

ILLUSTRATION / HI Roundabout (VOI)

JAKARTA - Chairman of the DPR Budget Agency (Banggar) Said Abdullah asked the government to impose a total Large-Scale Social Restriction (PSBB) policy from 11-31 January 2021 to all regencies or cities in Java and Bali. Meanwhile, the government has imposed restrictions on community activities (PPKM) on January 11-25.

According to Said, the implementation of the total PSBB policy cannot be postponed any longer considering the graph of the spread of COVID-19 which has shown an upward trend since the last two weeks.

"With the implementation of the total PSBB policy, there will be no more conventional office activities, hotels, tours, restaurants and teaching and learning activities. Everything is carried out online," Said said as quoted by Antara, Thursday, January 7.

However, he continued, strategic activities such as distribution of foodstuffs, shopping places, construction work and energy supply, as well as medical work, were still allowed. However, everything must be implemented with strict health protocols and directly supervised by law enforcement officials.

Therefore, said Said, the government must ensure the basic daily food needs of the people who are categorized as very poor by referring to the Integrated Social Welfare Data (DTKS) in the area determined by the total PSBB.

"The DPR Budget Agency will provide full support so that all budget requirements to carry out this policy run well, smoothly and successfully," said Said.

Apart from that, Said also reminded the government that the number of tests, tracing and isolation must be increased and carried out with good management. This is important considering that the number of COVID-19 tests per 1 million population is still very low, which is only 27,799 thousand.

This figure is far behind compared to India, which is ranked second in the world for total COVID-19 cases, but the number of COVID-19 tests reached 128,623 people per 1 million population.

Indonesia is also far behind neighboring countries such as Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Myanmar.

"I recommend that the COVID-19 test be increased to 100,000 per 1 million population and consistently increase the number of tests. Tracing management is also intensified, by mobilizing all resources, including ensuring the monitoring of the isolation of COVID-19 patients, especially those with OTG, is running well," said Said. .

He said the government must ensure not only the availability of the number of vaccines and vaccination personnel as well as the equipment and operations, more than that the ability of vaccines to work well.

"And to do this must be at a large budget, if we fail we are threatened with losing a lot of things, resources, time and people's lives," said Said.