Travel Restrictions in Preventing the COVID-19 Spread : How about Indonesia ?
We know that COVID-19 was originated in Wuhan and has spread around the world. Regulations were made by some countries to prevent the spread in their country by closing the international border, lockdown, travel restrictions both domestic and international. Some countries have succeed dealing with COVID-19 disease and learn to live with it. We can take New Zealand as an example. This country did a strict lockdown since early pandemic in 2020, closed their border, restrict crowds gathering and travel, which results in zero to minimum (less than 25) daily cases since May 2020.
The Indonesian Government also made several regulations to prevent the COVID-19 spread, including travel restriction. However, these regulations didn’t go as planned. We can reflect from the end year holiday on December 2020 - January 2021 where Indonesian people were already tired of COVID-19 pandemic and went for a holiday without obeying travel restrictions and health protocols. From the statistic data we can see the daily cases of COVID-19 in Indonesia increased and peak on January 2021. Hospitals were overcapacity, more ICU beds were needed, people were lining up to get hospitalized. The curve started to decline from February and new daily cases were stable on March-April 2021.
Will the cases increase again due to Eid Mubarak Holiday?
Indonesian people have traditions to go to their hometown during Eid Mubarak, as a social way to increase relationship with their relatives. The Indonesian Government has anticipated this by announcing domestic travel restriction during Eid Mubarak Holiday from May 6 to May 17 to prevent outbreaks at the regional cities, also to avoid the spread of COVID-19 to other regions. However, many Indonesian people tricked the Government by traveling earlier and spend longer time at their hometown. For those who didn’t travel to their hometown, they visited the nearby relatives, which created crowd gatherings as well. Let’s hope this Eid Mubarak Holiday wouldn’t increase COVID-19 cases like end year holiday in December or religious rituals in India recently.
How about international travel restrictions?
The Indonesian Government have closed the borders for international travelers since February 9, 2021. The exemption travelers from abroad should undergo mandatory quarantine for 5 days at designated facilities by their own expenses. They are going to get PCR test on the first and the last day of quarantine. However, five days of quarantine compare to other countries travel regulations seems too short. Though from the research the median of COVID-19 incubation period is five days, some people still able to get infected and incubate the virus until fourteenth days from the first day of exposure. It is safer to quarantine the travelers at least 14 days from their first day of arrival in Indonesia. Also, the Government should follow strict travel restrictions protocols from countries like Australia, New Zealand, Japan, or Singapore who have nailed to minimize COVID-19 new cases. They should learn from India or their closest neighbor Malaysia, whose cases spiked recently due to the lack of health protocols and crowd gatherings during religious events.
Remember that new COVID-19 variants have been detected and we should be extra cautious about this. Stay safe Fellas . Don’t forget to obey the health protocols everywhere you go.
