Covid19, The PPKM Inefficiency
the-read Short Notes on Cov-19 Social Distancing Policy
What’s best for Sunday evening when it’s raining and 19° Celcius?
- Snuggling with your girlfriend (so warm!🤗)
- Eating an instant noodle while watching k-drama (🍜 + 📺)
- Sleeping (🛌).
- Hanging out with friends in a cafe (☕ + 🚬 = 🤟)
Prologue
It’s the first week of February 2021 and it seems that the weather doesn’t change too much for the last couple weeks. In Bandung (Indonesia), the average precipitation rate is 240mm (9.4in) and the average temperature is 19.4°C (66.92°F). For those who lived in south Bandung, this means that they need to be extra aware and brace for the ‘annual’ floods of Citarum river, but for those who lived in a much safer area such as Dago, especially young adults (18–25), it’s a call for a ‘hangout season’ of the year, coffee and friends company make such a good complement to the current weather.
But the Covid19 aggressiveness isn’t stopping, nor it’s slowing.
In fact, it’s just getting worse. The PPKM (Pemberlakuan Pembatasan Kegiatan Masyarakat — People’s Activity Restriction Enactment), a policy issued by the government to control the spreading of Covid19 has been re-enacted for major cities across West Java (including Bandung and other 19 cities/regencies). The reasons are clear; there’s a surge in Covid19 cases in Java and Bali region, 7 provinces in that region are responsible for accounting for 60%+ national covid cases. PSBB policy introduced to maintain people’s business while also restrain people’s movement in order to control the Covid19 spread. But a recent surge in Covid19 cases might just indicate the policy’s inefficiencies. This article will try to analyze these suspected inefficiencies in order to better understand the situation and suggesting possible solutions.
Are We Fighting Vampires?
One of the PPKM protocols stated that restaurant and cafe can still be operated under strict regulation; it only allows 25% visitors at a time and need to be closed at 07:00 PM (later changed to 08:00 PM), similar protocols introduced to malls and shopping center. Another protocol of PPKM is roadblocks, which limit people’s movement by implementing roadblocks in a designated time frame, Dipatiukur St. in Bandung closed at 05:00 PM. One of the distinct differences — that I’ve experienced — between living under PPKM restriction and not is that; 1. People are using face masks on the road, BUT, a lot of them are taking that out once they’ve arrived at their destination, 2. Bandung ‘empty’ after 08:00 PM (although a lot of Bandung’s area are not that ‘empty’). It gives me the impression that people are treating Covid19 virus as if it’s some kind of a vampire, as if they only infect people at night.
It gives me the impression that we treating Covid19 virus as if it’s some kind of a vampire, as if they only infect people at night.
Of course, that is a silly-mindless impression that I concur through my own observation, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the inefficiency isn’t there. People are still in a high-mobility mode (not all of us have the privilege for WFH), violations are still everywhere, it makes the campaign efforts and the protocols oftentimes felt like a celebration rather than an actual restrain…
Apart from the fact that: ‘we’ll die from hunger if we’re not doing this’, as keeping up families to be able to provide foods on their table are still a top priority, we also need to consider to increase the PPKM efficiency in order to outweigh the loss that all suffer from this pandemic. I, myself, believe that there’s something that we can do about this, the tools are there and before we all get vaccinated, these improvements could prevent another loss from everyone.
Colonial Legacy x Advanced Technology
These improvements that I’ve talked about involving a system inherited from the colonial era and advanced technology.
Colonial Legacy: RT/RW
We are blessed to have a RT/RW system in Indonesia (RT/RW explanation presented in the footnote). Japan introduced the RT/RW system in Indonesia during the WWII, its still being used today and it helps a lot of civil administrative and dispute settlements at the lowest level of society (neighborhood). In the context of combatting Covid19 virus, the RT/RW institution can be used extensively as the first gate of mobility restriction. If they have an updated Covid19 cases and the neighborhood’s mobility data, it is possible to have a lockdown and strict-mobility regulation at neighborhood level. By enabling this act, we can limit the Covid19 spreads without having the issues of a total city lockdown. Monitoring activities on religious buildings (mosque, church, vihara, etc) and business to control crowds are also possible by thorough use of RT/RW.
Advanced Technology
This is a no-brainer solution. All parties would agree that technology helps in controlling Covid19 spread are essentials. Alas, I would say the use of technology to date in a fight against Covid19 is still far from maximum. For instance, we could have a way to track people mobility in a sophisticated way using an app; imagine having an app that tracks people movement via GPS, or the need to check-in and check-out via an app/web if someone went off to a place like restaurants or cafe, or even a facemask facial recognition before we go out of our house…
We can also track people’s job by their job reference in residence ID or employer inputs, therefore we can have clear data of who has a high-mobility job e.g., online taxi drivers, and who’s not, thus making it easy to determine a ‘limit’ to people’s mobility by their regular mobility needs. The check-in check-out requirement in restaurants and other business can help to control the crowds, as there are still plenty of them that violate the Covid19 protocols, the list of possibility goes on and on as I believe the infrastructure and resources (we have plenty of talented app makers!!! ) for the technology implementation has already here.
Remarks and Good News
To criticize other people’s works can be a delicate matter depending on how we critics. But there’s always be a room for a constructive critics, and I believe that this is one of them. We’ve come to this far and having quite an okay results in a fight against Covid19, but extending efforts are harmless and people are still dying, so yeah, we need to get rid of these ‘vampires’ faster and come back stronger; typical moral hazards about feeling safe by using face mask while still lurking around every day just to enjoy a cup of coffee needs to be reduced, and to limit our mobility not only to a ‘designated curfew’ after 08:00 PM but also at daylight.
Typical moral hazards about feeling safe by using face mask while still lurking around every day just to enjoy a cup of coffee needs to be reduced, and to limit our mobility not only to a ‘designated curfew’ after 08:00 PM but also at daylight.
The Good News
Lucky for us, there is an actual app that works exactly like what I’ve mentioned before — this is not a sponsored content whatsoever — it’s called Peduli Lindungi and you can download it from your AppStore and GooglePlay Store. Some people worried about its phishing and malware issues (which is definitely a hoax). The app is pretty good and we can get access to vaccines schedule. But a lot of people are still clueless about the app (URRRGH! Typical government-backed program issues — bad at marketing). I heavily support you to download this app, logically as I’ve mentioned before, this kind of app helps to ease our lives by ending the pandemic faster.
Endnote:
RT/RW — originally Tonarigumi/Azzazyokai — is a system developed by Japan in January 1944. RT (Rukun Tetangga — Neighborhood Association) is an association formed from 30–50 families, while RW (Rukun Warga — Inhabitants Association) formed from 3 to 10 RTs. Usually being used for administrative purposes but the institution also serves as a community to maintain bonds between families, youth development and dispute settlement institutions.
