A month ago, Indonesia was special: despite it being the fourth most populous countries in the world, it has zero COVID-19 cases.
But the moment they reported their first confirmed case on 2 March 2020, shit hit the fan as the country now has 1,414 confirmed cases and 122 deaths.
With its fatality much higher than the global rate of 3.4%, no one would blame you for thinking that there could be more undetected cases.
What you might not know is that despite Jakarta declaring a state of emergency recently, the country’s not shut off its borders.
Not until today
Indonesia Closing Borders to Foreigners After It Has 1,411 Cases & 122 Deaths
Malaysia has done it. The Philippines has done it. Singapore has done it.
So it’s not really a surprise that Indonesia is doing it too, though it’s a tad later.
But hey, their first case also come so much later, right?
After a virtual ministers’ meeting (meeting contacted with video conferencing, not that the ministers are virtual), Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said this to reporters: “President (Joko) sees that our current policy needs to be made stricter. We have decided that all visits and transits by foreign nationals to Indonesia will temporarily be banned.”
Details of whether the ban would take effect immediately or not aren’t revealed yet.
However, just like any other countries, those with work permits can still enter the country.
It’s meant for people like that Singaporean who broke his SHN to head back to Batam.
Ms Rento added, “Practically all nations have put in place limits on the flow of travellers with varying (degree of) strictness depending on the respective situation and condition in each country.”
Two Large Group of Returnees
With no short-term visitors, Indonesia would now see two groups of people coming into the country.
The first is a group of Indonesians working in Malaysia, which numbers to a whopping 1 million Indonesians. Didn’t I tell you earlier that Indonesia is the fourth most populous country liao?
The second is a group of Indonesians who worked in cruise ships, which numbers to about 11.8K Indonesians in 89 different cruise ships.
With both our close neighbours now shutting their borders, it’s safe to say that the COVID-19 situation is getting worse every single day.
I mean, you read about how even ICT or IPPT are cancelled, right?
