A Papua New Guinea minister has raised concerns about “serious issues” at the PNG-Indonesia border due to a lack of proper security checkpoints.

Culture and Tourism Minister Belden Namah, who is also the member for the border electorate Vanimo-Green, voiced these concerns while supporting a new Biosecurity for Plants and Animals Bill presented in Parliament by Agriculture Minister John Boito.

He said Papua New Guinea was the only country in the Pacific Islands region that shared a land border with another nation.

According to Namah, the absence of proper quarantine and National Agriculture Quarantine and Inspection Authority (NAQIA) checks at the border allowed people bringing food and plants from Indonesia to introduce diseases affecting PNG’s commodities.

Minister Namah, whose electorate shares a border with Indonesia, noted that while the PNG Defence Force and police were present, they were primarily focused on checking vehicles coming from Indonesia instead of actively patrolling the borders.

He clarified the roles, saying, “It’s NAQIA’s job to search vehicles and passengers, and the PNGDF’s role is to guard and patrol our borders.”

Namah expressed concern that while bills were passed, enforcement on the ground was lacking.

Minister Namah supported the PNG Biosecurity Authority Bill and called for consistency, increased border security, and stricter control checks.

Republished from the PNG Post-Courier with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

As of August 15, the mandates ended for the seven-day isolation period and masks in health settings, with the Health Minister Dr Ayesha Verrall saying wastewater testing showed little trace of the virus.

Dr Verrall acknowledged many would still feel vulnerable.

“So it is on all of us to think well if we’re visiting an aged residential care home for example, that we do follow the recommended procedures there.

“Te Whatu Ora will continue to encourage people to wear masks when they go to hospital — they won’t be mandated.”

Covid cases accounted for just over 2 percent of hospital admissions, Dr Verrall said.

Last step on wind down
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins told RNZ Morning Report this was the last step in winding down covid-19 restrictions.

“We waited until after the winter peak period. The health system overall, while it’s been under pressure and it’s still under pressure, had a much better winter this winter than last winter.”

He said it was on the advice of the director-general of health and there was never a perfect time to make changes to health settings.

General Practice New Zealand chair Dr Bryan Betty said practices like mask wearing and self-isolation should be encouraged for all viruses, not just Covid.

He told Morning Report people needed to continue with the lessons that were learnt from covid but which were applicable to all viruses that were spread from person-to-person such as influenza and RSV.

“Voluntarily staying at home if you do have a flu or a cold so you don’t spread it, and I think masking in public areas of health facilities voluntarily is something we should still keep in play.”

Health providers should consider ensuring masks were worn in places where sick people gathered such as hospitals or GPs’ waiting areas, Dr Betty said.

Vaccination still important
Vaccination would still play an important part in reducing infection and re-infection, he said.

“We do that every year for influenza, we are potentially going forward going to be recommending that for covid, especially for vulnerable populations.”

Employers should be considering how to support workers so they do not come into work sick, he said.

Employers should give people with colds, the flu or Covid the opportunity to work from home if they can to avoid spreading the illness around the workplace, he said.

University of Otago epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker also urged people to stay home when they were sick with covid-19, even though all of the health restrictions had been lifted.

Professor Baker told Morning Report that covid had transitioned from a pandemic threat to an endemic infectious disease.

“Unfortunately that means it’s there the whole time, it is still in New Zealand among the infectious diseases, the leading cause of death and hospitalisation and we know that those infections and reinfections are going to add to that burden of long covid.”

Still vital to isolate
People must remember that it was still vital to isolate when they were sick and not go to work or school or socialise which spread the virus, he said.

People should also continue to wear masks in medical facilities and in poorly ventilated indoor spaces, he said.

New Zealand had come through its fourth wave of infection for the Omicron variant, he said.

“We are going to see new subvariants or lineage of the virus arrive, they will be better at escaping from our immunity, our immunity will wane of course unless you get boosted.”

The government needed to look at how to reinforce those behaviours that prevented covid from spreading now that the mandates had been removed, he said.

“I mean this could be running media campaigns or developing codes of practice say with employers, Business New Zealand, I mean this is a chance for them really to show leadership about how they’re going to support the workforce in New Zealand, self-isolating when they are sick.”

Hospitilisations and mortality rates showed that covid-19 continued to have an impact and watching those rates would indicate whether the mandates had been removed too early, he said.

Integrated approach needed
New Zealand needed to develop a coherent, integrated approach to dealing with all respiratory infections which were the infectious diseases that had the biggest impact, he said.

“They have a big drain on our health resources and so we do need to look at better surveillance for these infections that will tell us what’s happening and also really it’s just having a culture of limiting transmission of these infections.”

That meant staying home when sick and using masks in indoor environments with poor ventilation, he said.

Auckland Council disability strategic advisory group chair Dr Huhana Hickey said getting rid of masks at health care centres was extremely dangerous for immunocompromised people.

“The problem for immune-compromised people is we’re frequent flyers, but we’re being asked to go into a situation that puts us all at risk of not just dealing with what’s making us sick but risking getting covid, which could kill us.”

Hickey said scrapping the seven-day compulsory isolation period could result in more workers returning while still infectious, which she believed would mean immunocompromised people were likely to stay home.

“If they cannot stay home and employers require them to work, they’re going to spread covid as well, so that means I don’t go to restaurants now because I don’t know if the waiter’s sick, I don’t know if the chef’s sick.”

Minimal impact of numbers
University of Auckland mathematics professor and covid-19 modeller Michael Plank expected the lack of mask and isolation requirements to have a minimal impact on case numbers.

He said the main drivers of infection were people who were asymptomatic cases or had not tested yet.

“I’m not sure than an isolation mandate is going to have a particularly large effect on infection rates in the long term.

“If we look at other countries that removed isolation mandates, like Australia, there’s really no evidence of a surge in numbers.”

Restaurant owners embraced the government’s decision.

The Restaurant Association surveyed more than 200 of its members, and 84 percent said they supported the idea.

But many planned to introduce their own requirements, chief executive Marisa Bidois said.

“Thirty nine percent of the respondents said they intended to mandate a five day isolation period for their employees,” she said.

“So that’s something they’re going to implement themselves as an internal policy.”

Many hospitality workers would also be expected to test themselves proactively.

“We also had 42 percent of respondents planning to require employees with any symptoms to undergo testing before returning to work.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Pacific Media Centre

Auckland Regional Public Health Service (ARPHS) staff are calling for restraint and calm as a New Zealand family in isolation for Covid-19 coronavirus has been “battered through social media”.

ARPHS Director Dr William Rainger said the family had done everything right and had minimised the risk to others.

“The woman with the virus has gone straight into isolation with her family when she was told she was suspected of having Covid-19,” he said.

READ MORE: NZ students pulled from two schools after second Covid-19 case

“Yet they have become the focus of sustained and abusive bullying on social media and are being hounded by the media.

“There is a high level of anxiety and concern in the school and wider communities, but it is not acceptable to attack people who have been caught up in this global outbreak. They have taken all the right actions to protect others,” Dr Rainger said.

“As a public health service, we are worried that such attacks will lead people to hide any illness that might be Covid-19, and not seek medical attention.

“We will not be able to contain the spread of this illness, if the public response is so hostile towards cases and their families,” he said.

Support needed
The Ministry of Health also supported the ARPHS message.

“I want to say that this is a Kiwi family that has been affected by a virus that is part of a worldwide outbreak,” said Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield.

“What they need is support and understanding. Our task is to ensure they have all the support and health care they need.”

Two children have been withdrawn from two Auckland high schools because a family member has contracted the Covid-19 coronavirus.

Dr Bloomfield said a woman in her 30s was New Zealand’s second confirmed case of the virus.

She had returned to Auckland from northern Italy last week on a flight via Singapore.

The two children who live with her attend Westlake Boys and Westlake Girls high schools.

Dr Bloomfield said it was highly unlikely they would have spread to the virus to other students.

ARPHS media release and RNZ under a partnership agreement with the Pacific Media Centre.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Sri Krishnamurthi

Former Director of Public Health Dr Colin Tukuitonga says it is incumbent on New Zealand to screen passengers travelling to and from the Pacific Islands thoroughly for the Covid-19 coronavirus.

Coronavirus continues to proliferate rapidly outside China where it originated, topping 90,000 cases and 3000 deaths worldwide.

There was risk of “devastating” the Pacific Islands, just as the measles outbreak did in Samoa last year with 5700 cases of measles and 83 deaths, out of a Samoan population of 200,874.

READ MORE: Coronavirus deaths in US rise to six – latest updates

“As for having something like the measles epidemic in the Islands, for example flights to and from Niue are to New Zealand first, and if New Zealand doesn’t scan all the passengers thoroughly then there is a chance of this virus spreading into the Islands,” Dr Tukuitonga said.

“In public health we use what we call as the precautionary principle where we do not have all the information that we need. The natural history of the coronavirus infection remains unknown.”

Dr Tukuitonga, who is the inaugural associate dean Pacific of Auckland University’s Health and Medical Sciences Faculty, said: “New Zealand doesn’t seem to be as concerned about the assessment and spread of the coronavirus. It has spread very quickly in Italy and South Korea.”

He recalled his time as the chief executive officer of the then Ministry Of Pacific Island Affairs in 2009 when there was an outbreak of influenza A (H1N1) 09, (swine flu) particularly among Pacific people.

No large gatherings
“Someone from the Pacific Media Network interviewed me and I recall I made a statement then that people shouldn’t congregate in large gatherings in the community, and I am of the same view now,” he said.

Minister for Pacific Peoples ‘Aupito William Sio said his advice, posted on social media was: “Not be scared but be prepared”.

“Given Samoa’s warning to our people travelling to Samoa, given coronavirus, what messages can you share with us to help our community?” he asked Dr Neru Leavasa on a Facebook post.

Dr Leavsasa emphasised that prevention was better than a cure approach.

“As a precautionary step, if you are coughing, rather than coughing into your hand, cough into the crook of your elbow, and if you do sneeze then use a tissue and get rid of it and wash your hands.”

The minister was also asked by Mangere-Otahuhu Local Board chair Lemauga Lydia Sosene: “What about large gatherings?”

He replied: “That’s a problem because we love to greet and hug, I’m going to suggest that instead of the greeting, hugging and kissing, that people give a thumbs up, nod and the bent-elbow sign in greeting.”

Close contact warning
Dr Leavasa warned about close contact.

“Yeah, elbow pump, but pretty much no hand contact, if you do then wash your hands for about 20sec,” Dr Leavasa said.

The Minister for Health, David Clark, has told Pacific Media Network it was safe to attend the Pasifika and Polyfest festivals.

“We’re confident at this stage the chance any spread into the community is very low, as long as people take sensible precautions,” Clark said.

Agnes Loheni, the National Party’s associate spokesperson for Pacific people urged caution and for people to be extra vigilant with proper hygiene practices.

“Serious illnesses such as the flu tend to have a worse toll in Māori and Pacific communities, especially if there are other issues such as overcrowded and inadequate housing,” she said.

“The recent measles outbreak in South Auckland showed how quickly highly contagious illness can spread so we need to make sure we’re doing everything we can to minimise the impact of coronavirus” she said.

As of yet, no cases have been recorded in the Pacific Islands.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Marchio Irfan Gorbiano in Jakarta

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has announced that two Indonesians have tested positive for the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), the first two confirmed cases of the disease in the country, reports The Jakarta Post.

Jokowi said that the two people, a 64-year-old and her 31-year-old daughter, had been in contact with a Japanese citizen who tested positive in Malaysia on February 27 after visiting Indonesia earlier in the month.

“When we received information [about the Japanese citizen] a team in Indonesia immediately traced who the Japanese citizen met with,” Jokowi told reporters at the State Palace on Monday.

“We checked [the two people] and this morning I received a report from the health minister that they tested positive for the coronavirus.”

READ MORE: Three people in Singapore latest to test positive for COVID-19 after visiting Indonesia

He said the government was well-prepared to handle COVID-19 cases.

“We have prepared over 100 hospitals with isolation rooms with good isolation standards. We also have equipment that meets international standards,” he said.

Health Minister Terawan Agus Putranto, who was also at the State Palace, said that the two women were residents of Depok, West Java, and were currently being treated at the Sulianti Saroso Infectious Diseases Hospital (RSPI Sulianti Suroso) in Jakarta.

Prior to this announcement, Indonesia had no confirmed cases of COVID-19, raising concerns about the country’s detection ability.

Republished from The Jakarta Post.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By RNZ News

Some Chinese students are being rejected by their homestays in New Zealand over fears about the deadly coronavirus.

Infections from the novel coronavirus has spread to more than 8100 people globally and has claimed more than 170 lives.

New Zealand’s Ministry of Education advised schools on Monday to ask any students coming from China to stay away from school for two weeks.

READ MORE: RNZ Pacific updates on the coronavirus epidemic

A student liaison with the NZ Institute of International Education, Charm Money, said some homestays had asked students to find other accommodation over that period.

She said the students were either staying with friends or in other rented accommodation.

Some students in China are also delaying their travel to New Zealand after schools here advised them to wait for two weeks.

Auckland’s Elim Christian College principal Murray Burton said some students and staff had been asked to stay away from school for a fortnight.

Stuck in a cycle
“We’ve got upwards of 30 students … local students who will not be returning on Monday because they need to wait for two weeks. We’ve got five staff who will not be returning on Monday.

“They’re very cooperative and we’ll work our way through that.”

National Party’s education spokesperson Nikki Kaye told RNZ’s Morning Report she was also hearing about students stuck in a cycle of being rejected.

“You may have students who may have test results and they’ve been to Hubei province, being requested to go back in with those accommodation providers and then [being refused].

“I’m being briefed by the Ministry of Education today and so I have a range of other questions about their response and contingency planning.”

She said she believed that risk to other students could be mitigated through alternative accommodation or isolation beds.

“There’s a huge difference between a student from Hubei province that is displaying symptoms, has got test results potentially coming back, and then a family that may have rejected a homestay student because they’re scared or they may have young children.”

Kaye said she was referring any situation she was aware of directly to ministers.

This article is republished under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Video report by RNZ Pacific.

RNZ Pacific’s Jamie Tahana reports

In the Pacific, where several countries are already dealing with epidemics, some countries have taken extreme measures to try and halt the spread of the new coronavirus.

While authorities say the risk of an outbreak remains low, little is being left to chance – especially in measles-devastated Samoa.

This video and article are republished under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By RNZ News

New Zealanders evacuated from Wuhan amid the coronavirus outbreak will be quarantined in Aotearoa – not on Christmas Island like the Australians.

As efforts to co-ordinate evacuations continue, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said New Zealanders would be brought back home, but where to remained a question to be answered.

“We are looking at the quarantine options within New Zealand already, we are working on that.” He said the government would be able to provide information on where when it had made a choice.

READ MORE: Pacific coronavirus updates with RNZ

There are 53 New Zealanders registered as being in Wuhan and Peters said extracting them was a complex issue. The criteria for getting on an evacuation flight were still being worked out.

The timeframe depended on the Chinese government’s permission to allow an aircraft to be used for extraction.

LISTEN TO RNZ MORNING REPORT: ‘We are looking at the quarantine options within New Zealand already’

A domestic aircraft would be a quicker solution than a military aircraft.

Peters said the mission would require the agreement of whoever flew and staffed the plane. Health safety measures would be put in place for them as well, he said.

When asked if New Zealand would pull consular staff out of China he said “that’s a fair question” but that “we don’t want to overreact until we know what we are reacting to and what the issue in terms of medical rescue is all about … it’s a major concern and all aspects of the problem known now and potentially are being looked at”.

New Zealand and Australian diplomats are meeting in Wuhan today to finalise a plan to get trapped residents out.

Travel cancelled and insurance warning
Meanwhile, travel companies in New Zealand are cancelling tours to China amid the coronavirus outbreak. It comes after a directive from the Chinese government.

One of those is Flight Centre, which has dropped all planned tours until April.

Its head of product, Victoria Courtney, said if people had left already for a tour it would go ahead as planned.

“Our advice at this stage … is to come in, talk to your travel consultant and we will reaccommodate people. We are working with all of our preferred partners on the ground to reaccommodate people wherever possible onto other itineraries or other holidays if possible and work to postpone or reschedule trips if that’s what customers choose to do.

“I think our advice would definitely be looking at the safe traveller information which is evolving daily … avoid all unessential travel to china and try to either cancel, postpone or reschedule.”

Courtney warned people to check their travel insurance if they were still going.

“Travel insurance will cover customers … if they get sick and they need to be repatriated or they have any medical expenses that they incur through the coronavirus … but most travel insurance itself won’t cover situations of communicable disease so it’s really good at this time to look at your travel insurance policy.

“There are some … which do cover situations like this, but it’s really worth talking to your travel insurance company or your travel adviser and we can work through the fine details.”

This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Rappler editorial

It’s not the virus. It’s not the Chinese flying into the Philippines. Our biggest enemy amid the Wuhan crisis is panic.

Here’s the situation: a new strain of the coronavirus has caused an outbreak in the city of Wuhan in central China. It has so far killed 106 people and infected more than 4500.

While the entire province of Hubei is on lockdown, the virus has nevertheless been transmitted by infected humans to at least 12 other countries.

READ MORE: Coronavirus update: NZ to team up with Australia to get citizens out of Wuhan

The Philippines is awaiting confirmation if the virus has reached its shores.

So far, the only case acknowledged by the Department of Health (DOH) to be under observation is a five-year-old boy from Wuhan who was isolated in a hospital in Cebu City starting January 12, and has since been discharged.

While the boy has exhibited flu-like symptoms, there’s no certainty yet that what he has is the newly-discovered 2019 novel coronavirus (nCoV), also called the Wuhan virus. It could be any of the 7 known coronaviruses. Health authorities are awaiting the results of lab tests done on the boy’s samples in Australia.

The Bureau of Immigration has tracked down the family of four whose father, after traveling from Wuhan to Hong Kong, has been found to be “preliminary positive” with the virus. Leaving the patient in HK, the family boarded a Cebu Pacific flight to Manila on January 22.

Monitoring movements
The Justice Department says it is monitoring the movements of that family, and “may refer them to Bureau of Quarantine” (BOQ). The airline urged the passengers of that flight 5J 111 to get themselves checked.

On Monday morning, January 27, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said in a Malacañang briefing that the DOH was investigating 11 possible nCov cases in 6 regions in the country, but reiterated that there is no confirmed case yet.

Without any confirmation from health authorities, the rest of the supposed cases we’ve been reading about on social media are speculations or outright misinformation.

Understandably, Filipinos are worried. The 2019 nCov, which can infect a person’s airways, has symptoms similar to the deadly SARS-CoV of 17 years ago, and can be transferred from human to human. And while scientists have yet to understand the new virus’ life cycle, how exactly it’s transmitted, and whether it is going to mutate, there is no approved vaccine or treatment yet for the coronavirus infection.

As of January 28, DOH says there is still no confirmed case of the 2019 nCov in the Philippines

But we should caution ourselves against letting this worry spiral into panic. Because panic can blur our judgment. It makes us vulnerable to wrong information or speculation or conspiracy theories. It makes us discriminate against any person “who looks Chinese” and is wearing a mask, or is in the vicinity of a hospital.

It makes us question the specialists in the health department when they don’t seem to be as worried as we are. We nag our local governments to do drastic things that are outside the protocols established by the DOH.

Push for total ban
We’ve heard of Chinese-looking individuals not being allowed to enter the emergency room of a hospital – a nurse had to talk to them outside, and then they were turned away. In one city, we heard that some journalists were among those pushing the mayor to declare a total ban on Chinese tourists.

Some have made racist remarks about what the Chinese in the mainland eat.

Let’s go back to what authorities say we know about the Wuhan virus, and stick to that.

Arnaud Fontanet, head of the department of epidemiology at Institut Pasteur in Paris, says the 2019 nCov, in its current form, appears to be “weaker” than SARS. It’s too early to say whether the virus is going to mutate or not.

Rabindra Abeyasinghe, the country representative to the Philippines of the World Health Organisation (WHO), said as of January 21 that it was “too early to say this is a severe disease.” So far, those who have died had pre-existing illnesses, while not all of them had a history of getting in contact with the wet market in Wuhan where wild animals being sold were suspected to have been the source of the virus.

‘Basis for testing’
Through the WHO, China’s health ministry is expected to provide the Philippines and other countries a DNA sample of the 2019 nCoV. This “will serve as the basis for our own testing and treatment” via the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine, says Secretary Duque.

Duque says the Philippines’ “detection capability is still evolving,” but this should not be a handicap. Thanks to the internet, scientists from universities, research centers, and even private companies across the globe are collaborating online to study the Wuhan virus so China and other countries can all respond to it appropriately.

So far, the Philippines has suspended all direct flights to and from Wuhan, and has put its Bureau of Quarantine at the airports on high alert.

The DOH assures the public that it is ready in case the Wuhan virus reaches the Philippines, and this confidence stems from the fact that, since the 2003 SARS crisis, protocols on monitoring and testing are in place, and surveillance units are in place in the regions, cascading information and instructions down to the barangays.

Our part – as citizens, as local governments – is to take heed.

An editorial published today by the leading independent Philippines online news website.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Andrio Adiwibowo in Jakarta

After beating the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) epidemics in the past, we may think we will win the battle against the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV).

But this optimism is turning into pessimism.

First, several developed countries known to have the best infection control in the world have confirmed cases. It started with Japan and South Korea and peaked when the United States announced its first confirmed case on January 21.

READ MORE: China battles coronavirus outbreak – all the latest

Instead of declining, the number of people infected is on the rise. Developed countries like Canada, France and Australia had reported infections. At this stage, the game seems to be over.

The situation at ground zero is even worse. As reported by Al Jazeera, there have been 106 deaths in China alone, while across the world the figure of infected people has exceeded 4520 within only three weeks, mostly in China.

Worse, Wuhan has gradually lost its ability to defend itself.

Outside China, a new case has been confirmed almost every day in 14 countries. In Indonesia, there has been growing concern about whether the coronavirus epidemic has reached the country, after two suspected cases were reported in Jambi and Bandung, West Java. The patient being treated at Hasan Sadikin Hospital in Bandung has traveled to Wuhan.

Enemy in backyard
“Hence, the enemy has arrived in our backyard. The question now is whether the previous SARS and MERS epidemics have taught us any lessons.

The reproductive number (RO) measures how infectious a disease is. According to Maimuna Majumder, an expert from Harvard Medical School, and a 2020 paper by Jonathan M. Read et al, the 2019-nCoV has the highest RO ever recorded.

For comparison, the RO for the average flu and SARS are 1.3 and 2.0, respectively, while the RO for the 2019-nCoV can reach 3.8. This explains why the number of confirmed cases is so high.

Indonesian health authorities have too much confidence in using thermal scanners to defend against the 2019-nCoV. It worked for SARS, but this time around it has failed to detect the person from Jambi, who was a returning traveler.

We should remember that we are dealing with a virus that can mutate. First, the virus is an organism known to have a seven to 14-day incubation period. During this period, a carrier does not show any symptoms that can be detected by a thermal scanner. That’s why carriers can pass undetected.

Experts say the 2019-nCoV can mutate and has a longer incubation period, making it difficult to detect. The virus is mutating but unfortunately our technology is not up to date.

Maintaining momentum is crucial to dealing with coronavirus infections. Unfortunately, emergency action was not taken immediately on January 1, when 41 cases were reported.

Golden period
The golden period of three weeks passed without any significant action taken, such as quarantines or a travel ban. Measures taken after this golden period may do little to stop the infection from spreading.

The dark side of Wuhan lies in the Huanan market, the center of this epidemic. The 2019-nCoV is assumed to have been transmitted from wild animals sold in the market.

The ongoing epidemic exposes the big picture of China’s health problems. Despite having 5G technology, people in China have maintained a tradition of consuming bushmeat, ranging from camels to bats. The SARS epidemic started from human consumption of civets that were carrying the virus.

As of Sunday, it had been confirmed that 33 out of the 585 samples collected from the market contained the coronavirus. To prevent such epidemics from recurring, not only must the virus be killed but the practice of consuming bushmeat must also be stopped.

Indonesia’s capacity to win the battle against the novel coronavirus is represented by the country’s epidemic preparedness index (EPI) and infectious vulnerability index (IVI). Based on a study by Isaac Bogoch et al, Indonesia, represented by Denpasar, scores 0.563 in the IVI, which is the lowest among the 18 cities across the world surveyed.

This is a serious issue considering that Denpasar is the country’s top tourist destination for foreigners.

Furthermore, Ben Oppenheim et al have categorised Indonesia under EPI cluster 3, with vaccination coverage of only 5 percent. These facts serve as a reminder that Indonesia needs to strengthen its arsenal to win the fight against the new coronavirus.

Hopefully, smarting from our mistakes, we can do something to improve our defense against not only the coronavirus but also other viruses that may strike in the future.

Dr Andrio Adiwibowo is a lecturer at the School of Public Health, University of Indonesia (UI).

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz