PKS: Emergency PPKM Failed, Result Far From Expected

JAKARTA - Member of the PKS faction of the DPR, Bukhori Yusuf, criticized the evaluation of the implementation of the Emergency PPKM for more than two weeks running from July 3-20. According to him, the government failed to realize the target for handling COVID-19 through an emergency restriction policy.

Referring to data from the Ministry of Health and the COVID-19 Handling Task Force, Bukhori said, it was found that a number of indicators were not achieved by the government during the two weeks of restrictions.

Among them, testing for COVID-19 with a target of 324 thousand per day, but the realization is 127,000 per day. Tracking, target of 300 thousand contacts per day, realization of 250 thousand per day.

Java-Bali mobility decline, target of 30 percent, realization of 20 percent. Vaccination target of 1 million per day, realization: 546 thousand per day. Positivity Rate, target less than 10 percent, realization of 25 percent. And the rate of transmission, the target is below 10 thousand cases per day on a national scale, but the realization is 34,257 cases as of July 19, 2021.

“The price paid for this PPKM is quite expensive. The survival of the people was squeezed by the emergency restrictions which were not matched by the realization of adequate social assistance. However, it is unfortunate that this Emergency PPKM policy has far from expectations and achievements," said Bukhori, Wednesday, July 21.

This member of the House of Representatives Commission VIII also highlighted the case of the COVID-19 variant in Indonesia which was recorded to have decreased from July 15 to July 20. Initially, the number of additional cases on July 15 was 56,757 cases.

This figure is the highest record for the addition of daily cases reported during the pandemic. The next few days there was a gradual decline to 54,000, 51,952, 44,721, 34,257, and finally 38,325 cases as of July 20, 2021.

However, Bukhori noted that there were irregularities in the downward trend in the daily number of cases due to the declining number of testing. Therefore, he asked the public not to be fooled and to be more comprehensive in viewing the data presented by the government.

"It is worth paying close attention, although the daily reported cases are decreasing, our trend of transmission rate (positivity rate) tends to increase. This means that the rate of transmission of the virus remains high and dangerous. false calm,” explained the PKS politician.

WHO previously set a minimum threshold for the positivity rate of less than 5 percent. The higher the positivity rate of a region, the worse the pandemic condition in that region will be.

Meanwhile, the COVID-19 Handling Task Force announced that the rate of transmission of the COVID-19 virus in Indonesia as of July 20 was 33.42 percent. Thus, this figure shows the rate of transmission of COVID-19 in Indonesia is six times higher and far from the WHO safe standard.

In addition, continued Bukhori, the high spike in cases in Indonesia has also attracted the attention of foreign media. Some even call Indonesia the epicenter of the world's COVID-19 transmission. The New York Times, for example, said the increase in virus infections and daily deaths in Indonesia had exceeded that of India and Brazil.

A number of friendly countries have evacuated their citizens from Indonesia. Other countries have also announced travel bans for their citizens to travel to Indonesia

"This means that we are isolated by the international community due to the government's failure to control the pandemic from the start. Therefore, there must be a thorough evaluation, including the mentality of policy makers who are not humble enough to the Creator," said the Central Java legislator.

The member of the Commission on religion considered that everyone should understand that this epidemic is part of God's power. For that, said Bukhori, the message of optimism to the public needs to be built, but not to be arrogant.

"Eliminate the aggressive and arrogant public communication model. By being humble towards the Creator, what we need to do is make peace with the one in charge of the virus, namely Allah SWT. Because we cannot win if we only dwell on prokes, PPKM or vaccination only," said Bukhori.

According to him, it also needs noble character from leaders and encouragement to repent and draw closer to God.

"Hopefully with His permission we are allowed to be free from this epidemic," said Bukhori.