Once Criticizing PPKM Was Ineffective, Now Jokowi Is Sure PPKM Mikro Can Reduce COVID-19

President Jokowi (DOC. BPMI Setpres)

JAKARTA - President Joko Widodo is optimistic that the implementation of restrictions on micro-community activities (PPKM) will be able to prevent COVID-19 cases. In fact, some time ago Jokowi had criticized the strategy of his staff when implementing PPKM.

"Indeed, at the beginning I was angry. This PPKM was ineffective because only two provinces had come down. The others did not go down at all. Why did I say that at the beginning of the week the PPKM was not effective? Yes indeed because the curve is not decreasing," Jokowi said in the Presidential Secretariat Youtube broadcast, Saturday, February 20.

In PPKM implementation, new cases per day can reach 14 thousand cases. Until finally, the government has implemented a micro-scale PPKM since February 9 until now. The development of new cases has declined.

"If we remember, maybe 3 weeks ago it was still 14 thousand, even 15 thousand, now last week it was 8 to 9 thousand. This shows that PPKM Mikro, if we do it seriously, will give results," said Jokowi.

Why is Jokowi so optimistic that PPKM Mikro is able to overturn cases? He learned from handling COVID-19 in India. At the start of the pandemic, India implemented a one-country lockdown. Unfortunately, this failed due to weaker economic conditions.

Until finally, India changed its strategy for handling the pandemic by carrying out lockdowns at the micro-level.

"Even though in the beginning India had a total lockdown, so India changed its strategy, but the strategy was the same, micro-scale PPKM. So, that's what we use," said Jokowi.

From there, Jokowi considered the previous limitation strategies, namely PPKM and PSBB, to be wrong.

"If the one with a red category is only one RT (Neighbourhood Unit), one city should not be locked down, the PSBB is one city, the economy will be affected. If one sub-district gets one, only one urban village has been isolated. That's what India has done," he added.