If You Were The President of Indonesia, What Would You Do To Fight COVID-19?

The new coronavirus (COVID-19) is undoubtedly the hardest challenge the world is facing as of right now. The numbers of the infected are rapidly increasing and numerous countries have reported cases from this outbreak. China, the place where the virus originated, has been heralded as a success story for being able to flatten the curve. They managed to flatten the curve by taking drastic measures such as a full-on lockdown. Hypothetically speaking, if Indonesia decides to lock down the country, it will be hard on the middle-lower class since the economy is still unstable and the class gap in Indonesia is quite wide.

 So, if I were president of the country, what would I do? I've done my research on other countries who managed to flatten the curve and a lot of them managed to slow the spread of the virus without instituting any lockdown. They did it by making the tests available to many people and they tested more than 20,000 people daily. They also did the widespread contact tracing that was recommended by WHO to break the chains of transmission. And I'd like to apply this to Indonesia too since a lot of people have said that it is hard to get tested for corona. 

As a country with a struggling economy, a lockdown is hard to pull off. But, there is another way to slow the spread of the virus which is social distancing. This term itself is often changed to physical distancing. According to Wikipedia, It is basically a set of non-pharmaceutical interventions or measures taken to prevent the spread of a contagious disease by maintaining a physical distance between people and reducing the number of times people come in contact with one another. If I was the president, I'd socialize the importance of social distancing. 

People usually mistake the term social/physical distancing to self-quarantine and self-isolation but they are actually different. Self-quarantine is done when you are a person with high risks of infection and you need to stay home for 14 days. Meanwhile, self-isolation is when you already tested positive for the virus and you have to isolate yourself from other people. This common misunderstanding brings me to my next point which is educating citizens. This also relates to transparency. We need to tell the people about what's going on, how to prevent the virus, the importance of social distancing and what to do if you have the symptoms. 

I feel like educating people is quite important because I've seen the mass panic in society leading to panic buying/over hoarding basic health amenities and food supplies. Those who aren't fortunate enough are actually struggling to survive this pandemic. To resolve this problem, I'll limit the number of health amenities and supplies people can buy. This strategy is already used in many countries and it worked to stop people from panic buying or over-hoarding. Another issue I'd like to resolve is hoax. During this pandemic, I've seen a lot of hoaxes being spread through social media. I'd like to take legal, immediate actions against those who spread hoaxes and educate people so they don't believe in the false news being spread. 

 A lot of people are also taking this pandemic as an opportunity to get some profit. Hoarders, Illegal mask sellers or people who sell health amenities at an unreasonable price. To stop this, I would provide health amenities (masks, antiseptics) to supermarkets and each person has limits as to how many things they can buy to prevent hoarders.

These are simply my opinions and I hope the best for us all.