Covid-19 Consultant Denies Pilkada Trigger Case Increase In South Sulawesi

Illustration - Governor of South Sulawesi M. Nurdin Abdullah checks the Mobile Combat PCR COVID-19 facility in Makassar (Photo: Antara)

JAKARTA - Head of the South Sulawesi COVID-19 Handling Consultant Team, Professor Ridwan Amiruddin, denied that regional head elections had triggered an increase in cases of COVID-19 transmission in South Sulawesi.

"The increase in cases after the pilkada, does not necessarily result solely because of the pilkada, there are many contributing aspects," he said in Makassar, Saturday.

According to him, the increase in virus cases in South Sulawesi was influenced by several things, such as local transmission and an increase in the number of independent isolations by around 35 percent.

The local transmission in question is massive transmission without travel so that the spread of COVID-19 occurs in the environment of a person's daily routine or activities.

"We will reduce independent isolation by encouraging isolation centrally in the nearest COVID-19 tourism," he said.

Tourism COVID-19 is a program of the South Sulawesi Provincial Government in order to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in South Sulawesi by separating OTG patients (People without Symptoms) from patients accompanied by comorbidities who are treated in hospitals.

The South Sulawesi Provincial Government is currently initiating the regionalization of COVID-19 tourism in five regions, such as Palopo City, Parepare, Bantaeng Regency, Wajo, and Bone.

Currently, COVID-19 Tourism is starting to arrive in Palopo City and is being planned for four other areas.

The latest data from the South Sulawesi COVID-19 Handling Task Force as of 11 December 2020 shows the total number of South Sulawesi COVID-19 cases reached 22,661 cases, 19,294 recovered cases, and 521 deaths or 2.3 percent.

The number of additional confirmed positive cases in South Sulawesi continued to increase in the last week, while as of December 11, it reached 259 cases from 1,483 PCR tests.