Daily Positive Cases Penetrating 10,000, Self Isolated Hotels Are More Filled

Illustration. (Photo: Unsplash)

JAKARTA - The Indonesian Hotel and Restaurant Association (PHRI) noted that the room occupancy of a number of hotels is currently increasing because they are used for independent isolation for people infected with COVID-19. The increase in active cases of COVID-19 in the country continues to increase.

As is known, active cases of COVID-19 in the country continue to increase. As of Friday January 8, new cases reached 10,617 people. Meanwhile, 233 people died.

PHRI Chairman and the Indonesian Employers' Association (Apindo) Hariyadi Sukamdani said, before the Provincial Government (Pemprov) advised to partner with hotel businesses to address the problem of bed capacity for COVID-19 patients, this had been done by a number of hotel owners in Jakarta.

Hariyadi said, when Governor Anies Baswedan applied the Large-Scale Social Restrictions (PSBB) in the transition period, the hotel owner registered with the DKI Jakarta provincial tourism office to become his place of business as an alternative treatment for positive patients with COVID-19 without symptoms or OTG.

"It has happened (using hotel rooms), since the second PSBB, it has happened, many hotels have used it," he said at a BNPB press conference, Friday, January 8.

According to Hariyadi, the use of hotel room facilities for isolation is not only used independently by the community. However, there are also government-provided hotel rooms for free or subsidized.

This means that in the payment scheme for hotel facilities, the government bears the cost of care during isolation for the lower middle class and the independent costs that are directly provided by the community.

"There are two (schemes), there is a budget from the government for people whose income may not be able to be independent. On the other hand, there are also those that provide for self-paid isolation. So it is already running," he explained.

According to PHRI's observations, Hariyadi said, the number of positive cases that increased significantly had a positive impact on cash flow in the hotel sector. Even so, he did not confirm that previously this phenomenon actually made the hotel business liquidity contract quite deeply.

"We observe that the paid ones are also quite an interesting phenomenon because the number of positive cases is high, so the demand is quite increasing as well. Even though we had decreased during the second PSBB, during the transition period and during the initial period, the demand is now increasing," he said. .

For your information, the government has prepared hundreds of hotels scattered in various regions to accommodate the independent isolation of COVID-19 patients. Most locations are in the DKI Jakarta area.

The 2-star and 3-star hotel rooms are prepared by the government to treat positive COVID-19 patients without symptoms or OTG who do not have a place to carry out independent isolation.

Quoting data from the COVID-19 Handling Task Force released on covid19.go.id, currently 33 hotels in Jakarta have been registered to be used as independent isolation areas, the costs of which have been borne by the government since last October 2020.