The Importance Of Maintaining Distance, People Must Assume That Anyone Who Comes Near Can Carry The Virus

ILLUSTRATION/UNSPLASH

JAKARTA - Public Health Expert, Professor Hasbullah Thabrany, reminded the public to increase discipline in the PPKM Level 3-4 period currently in effect, especially maintaining distance.

The reason is, although cases have decreased slightly, Indonesia cannot be predicted to have passed the peak of COVID-19.

"Because of COVID-19 there is no formula for when it peaks or does not peak, it depends on human discipline. So if now because of the Emergency PPKM, the tightening, people entering Jakarta are blocked, entering Bandung is blocked, everywhere is inhibited. So indeed people are very lacking mobility, of course there is a decrease because the virus moves from person to person only within a distance of less than two meters, that's scientific," said Prof. Hasbullah to VOI, Tuesday, 27 July.

"So if there are people who are more than two meters away, the smaller the case, later if there are people who gather again, shop again, queue again, then go up again," he continued.

The Chief of Part of USAID Health Financing Activity (HFA) explained that in fact the number of COVID-19 cases when the Emergency PPKM was implemented was greater than before the tightening was implemented.

On Saturday, July 3, when the Emergency PPKM took effect, Indonesia set a record with daily cases of nearly 28,000 COVID-19 cases. Meanwhile, before PKPM Micro, there were 4,000-5,000 daily cases.

"Well, now it's 28,000, still six times more than before PPKM. So the risk of infecting other people is still a lot. If it's 4,000 all over Indonesia, it means that there are 4,000 people who infect others," he explained.

The number of 28,000 per day, said Hasbullah, is only confirmed to infect people. If you look at the scheme of the iceberg phenomenon, it is predicted that there are more numbers that are not visible in the data.

"There are only a few people who are naughty in this world who were caught by the police, but in fact many were not caught in the field. So some friends, for example, unanimously said that if they got 28,000 cases, actually there were 280,000 in the field. yes, that much can be transmitted to other people," said Hasbullah.

Unless, he continued, people around could stop not getting close, so there would be no transmission. This means that maintaining a safe distance of more than two meters must be implemented.

"But the problem is, from person to person how does he know someone has the virus or not? We never know. So the assumption in medicine is that anyone close to us is a carrier of the virus," he said.

"If everyone can behave like that, always keep a distance of more than 2 meters, always wear a mask, God willing, cases can go down," said Hasbullah.

In conclusion, he added, no matter how long the PPKM period is added, it will still not decrease if the community is not disciplined.

"But I doubt that the Indonesian people can't be disciplined," said Hasbullah.