Corona Alert: Opinions?

Indonesia is facing an emergency situation right now, until 6th April 2020, the number of positive COVID-19 reaches 2,273 with 164 recoveries and 198 deaths.

Previously, Indonesia was focusing on superintending fake news and hoaxes about the coronavirus. Indonesian's citizens do believe that we will not get coronavirus and often underestimate that the virus won't arrive in Indonesia, with illogical reasons. It is still believed to be true until the 2nd of March 2020. On that day, an official announcement that two people were positive COVID-19 from Depok. The media published, everyone went panic which leads to panic buying, surgical masks and hand sanitizers are as still the most precious equipment as a necessity. 

Surely, social and physical distancing is important when going out. A lockdown is surely a good way to fight this virus. But there are tons of reasons if a lockdown was justified. Many people depend on going out to fulfill their needs. An obligation that is done by several countries, which is believed to be true doesn't mean that it implies best to our country. There are many more problems relating to this outbreak in Indonesia.

If I were the president of Indonesia, I will be bold enough to justify clarity. Transparency levels in Indonesia are still low among other countries. We should announce every detail that is worth knowing and stop encrypting nor hiding it so that it just seems to gain temporary satisfaction. Honesty is the main key to every problem.

Indonesia is a wide country and has the 4th largest amount of population in the world. A centralized government with 34 provinces led by a governor. Citizens do rely on our government to handle this pandemic. But there should be a clear, stated rule and procedures to be operated. 

Problem in hospital operations

Some hospitals in Jakarta were confused on how to handle COVID-19 patients. If the capital city still has troubles, what about other regions that are far and isolated? Therefore a clear procedure should be optimized.

Searching facts and information from other countries, yet picking a lesson learned. How do they handle these cases, sharpen curiosity,  be open minded, explore and observe.

A conference call by The Ministry of Health to all heads of hospital. Procedures written in pdfs and arranged in folders. Although it might be troublesome, a small step begins and soon all hospitals can be independent to handle corona cases. In this situation, motivation and support is really crucial. Strengthening the bond of adjacent hospitals is the best to do. In terms of which a hospital lacks rooms for patients, especially infected ones, it is important to transfer patients to a hospital nearby to save time.

Second, the dial number of COVID-19 emergencies are already published. However, when it comes to speed and accuracy, those call centers seldom pick up phone calls. It is true that call centers are really busy, but in terms of emergencies, there should be a fast and real move to help people. The operation center should be organized perfectly, as well as adding the number of administrations. Furthermore, connections to all departments who are ready to stand by consistently is the foremost part of a government's pure service. 

Hotels, athlete's homesteads, malls, and so many more buildings are renewed to build spaces for quarantine and a special hospital for corona is built. All of these should be legalized and optimized to its best especially the  transferring process of patients.

Treatment to all medical officers should deserve the best too, don't just let them wear raincoats for protection. The budget for the health area should be divided equally for the supplements and necessities of the officers. Hazmat suits must be divided equally by the government to all of the health officers, nurses and physicians  in every part of the region.

It's time to optimize top notch technologies

Technology is the innovative and modern key that simplifies people's jobs. Indonesia can start to learn and develop especially in R&D (Riset and Development). In this case, we can call every technology warehouse. It's time to recognize institutions, universities, schools that can bring an impact to our nation. A special calling for the ministry of education, ministry of technology and information to set up an advantageous tool. A tool invented in this urgent situation, maybe a COVID-19 detector, by just doing a single scan. Researches still figuring out the cure for the virus, the study of coronavirus patients that can be implemented to the society, figuring out prone to COVID-19 areas, creating a robot that can automatically spray disinfectants, an application to update knowing surgical masks availability in a store, creating a drive-thru to do a rapid test. All those examples are from other countries and we should learn from them, how they succeed in decreasing the number of infected people and so it comes to us, a mindset that we are capable and can invent more innovative and useful things too.

One of the main important factor to stop the number of people infected is to start tracing. A common desperate problem, patients who are obviously positive couldn't remember who they have met for 14 days. Security systems must be activated. It's best for everyone who is outside now to activate their GPS (Global Positioning System) to help keep track of where the virus spread. A great country that succeeded in decreasing its number of cases is South Korea, which gives official alerts and warnings locally in the city where the infected person went out for 14 days. That ease of information is currently needed to flatten the curve.

Devastating economy

What about all the other people who lose their job? Many people in the informal sector still continue working and yet they are still needed to fulfill people's needs. Generosity is the key to a happy soul. Some people couldn't afford to buy such needs for hygiene and yet the opportunity to get a rare item such as a surgical mask is too high for many people. If the president considers wearing masks as an obligation to all people getting out, then it must be fair if the government supports it by providing free masks to every house. Right now, it's a callout to every non-profit organization and volunteers to do an action. It can start from the smallest part of a country, from neighborhood associations (RT) to give warnings and support also as a media to the leaders above. We should provide basic food and search areas that really need it. 

Grants and loans are simply the fastest and most effective way to help the families of the highest concern.

Empowering people and comprehensive education so people could respond to this pandemic logically yet carefully and stop panicking.

Those are just personal opinions in my mind, but of course it's a tough job. In such situations, our country should perform risk and cost-benefits analysis before implementing such restrictions, to assess whether the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.

We should obey, appreciate and support our government all the time, don't forget their acts and services. Best luck to our government and pray for the best to fight the COVID-19!