Offices a Source of New Clusters

KOMPAS/RONY ARIYANTO NUGROHO

Hundreds of sheep cattle traders gather at Jonggol Animal Market, Bogor Regency, offering their cattle trade on Monday (27/7/2020). This time animal sales are dominated by livestock for the needs of Eid sacrifice such as goats, sheep and cattle. The crowd ignored the Covid-19 health protocol.

The growing number of people resuming work activities is causing Covid-19 to spread. Offices are now the main source of transmission clusters, so the movement of people must again be restricted.

JAKARTA, KOMPAS — Covid-19 is again spreading and new clusters have been emerging as a result of increased human activities. Offices, especially government offices, as well as residential areas and markets are a major source of new clusters.

Based on reports from the Covid-19 task force, Indonesia had 100,303 confirmed cases with an additional 1,525 new cases on Monday (27/7/2020). The cases were found by testing the samples of 807,946 people, bringing the nationwide positivity rate to 12.4 percent. This means that Indonesia’s positivity rate is far above the standard of the World Health Organization (WHO) of below 5 percent.

Also read: Workplaces at Risk of Covid-19 Transmission

The Health Ministry\'s Data and Information Center (Pusdatin) said that 701 Covid-19 transmission clusters had been identified across the country, with the majority of clusters located in the epicenter of Jakarta. The released data did not specify where and when the clusters emerged.

Location of transmission

The Covid-19 task force’s analysis for Jakarta shows that residential areas are the main source of transmission, followed by traditional markets, offices, health facilities and houses of worship.

Office-based clusters in Jakarta before 4 June 2020 produced 43 confirmed cases of Covid-19. However, 397 new cases have been detected since, so a total of 440 confirmed cases have emerged from workplace clusters in Jakarta at 68 offices.

The majority of these cases are from clusters in ministerial offices, including the Finance Ministry (25 cases), the Education and Culture Ministry (22 cases), the Tourism and Creative Economy Ministry (15 cases), the Health Ministry (10 cases), the Youth and Sports Ministry (10 cases), and the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry (9 cases).

Also read: Time for the “Stay-at-Home Economy”

The largest office-based cluster among state-owned enterprises is at mining company PT Antam, which has resulted in 68 confirmed cases. A number of private companies, including media companies, have also emerged as new clusters of transmission.

Epidemiologist Iqbal Elyazar at Laporcovid19.org explained that the increasing number of office-based clusters showed that the health protocols were difficult to implement, including among civil servants.

KOMPAS/FRANSISKUS WISNU WARDHANA DANY

Security guards at one of the offices in the Sudirman-MH Thamrin area inspect employees before entering the office area, Monday (8/6/2020). Office activities began to open as a period of large-scale social restrictions on the transition to new normal conditions.

"The government must release detailed information on transmission clusters. This is important for public awareness and control strategies. In other countries like Singapore, such [information] is disclosed so that the people know the risks," he said.

Disclosing information did not necessarily mean revealing the identities of the cases, but rather their travel history, so that people who were in the same location at a particular time could be made aware.

Chairman Ede S. Dharmawan of the Indonesian Public Health Experts Association (IAKMI) also called for full disclosure of tracing results and the new clusters. "It\'s good to announce the results of contact tracing. Whether it is true that the spread is occurring at a [particular] office or some other place," he said.

The government also needed to explain the types of work that were at risk of Covid-19 transmission.

According to the Covid-19 task force, it had recorded 4,838 Covid-19 cumulative deaths by Sunday. However, hospital data showed 17,756 cumulative deaths from suspected cases of. The data also showed an increase of 3,287 Covid-19 deaths over a period of 20 days.

The high disparity in the data on deaths among confirmed cases and suspected cases of Covid-19 indicates a problem with testing.

Limiting movement

The spike in Covid-19 cases in eight provinces has concerned President Joko Widodo, who has asked the affected regions to make more concerted efforts to reduce the local death rate, increase the recovery rate and control the rate of new cases. The eight provinces are Jakarta, West Java, Central Java, East Java, North Sumatra, South Sulawesi, South Kalimantan, and Papua.

Meanwhile, People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) Speaker Bambang Soesatyo called on regional administrations not to relax the social restrictions if some groups in the community refused to apply the health protocols. "Numerous violations of the health protocols mean that the regional administration is still failing [in their enforcement]," he said.

If their destinations do not have the capacity to perform polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, travelers must be quarantined for 14 days to prevent Covid-19 transmission

In addition, the government has been called on to tighten the travel requirements for people intending to visit other areas. If their destinations do not have the capacity to perform polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, travelers must be quarantined for 14 days to prevent Covid-19 transmission. "The test is done when the travelers arrive at their destination," said epidemiologist Bayu Satria Wiratama of Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta.

Moreover, according to Covid-19 task force spokesperson Wiku Adisasmito, the percentage of “red zones” – or areas at high risk of Covid-19 transmission – had increased from 6.81 percent to 10.31 percent, or from 35 regencies/cities to 53 regencies/cities. Areas at moderate risk of transmission, or orange zones, had increased from 169 regencies/cities to 185 regencies/cities.

Fourteen regencies/cities have been designated red zones, or hot spots of Covid-19 transmission, and their statuses have not changed for three consecutive weeks. Among these red zones are West Jakarta and Central Jakarta in Jakarta, Semarang (Central Java), Surabaya and Gresik (East Java), and Jayapura (Papua).

KOMPAS/ADITYA DIVERANTA

A number of workers on Jalan Haji Agus Salim, Central Jakarta, left the office during lunch break on Wednesday (22/7/2020). During the Covid-19 Pandemic, some of them were nervous about the emergence of a contagion cluster in the office area.

Meanwhile, Solo administration secretary Ahyani said that 60 people in Solo who were in close contact with Solo Deputy Mayor Achmad Purnomo, who had tested positive for Covid-19, had undergone a swab test. In addition, deputy rector for academic affairs Ahmad Yunus of Sebelas Maret University (UNS) had tested positive for Covid-19.

The research team has started recruiting volunteers for the clinical trial, who must meet a number of criteria.

Regarding vaccine development, a medical ethics committee had approved a clinical trial on the Chinese-manufactured Covid-19 candidate vaccine Sinovac in Bandung municipality. The research team has started recruiting volunteers for the clinical trial, who must meet a number of criteria.

Prof. Kusnandi Rusmil, who is heading the Covid-19 vaccine clinical trial at Padjadjaran University, said that prospective volunteers must be between the ages of 18-59 years, have no history of coronavirus infection or others diseases, such as asthma and hypertension, have no blood disorder and are not pregnant. (AIK/MTK/NTA/INA/HRS/ IKI/HRS/VIO/RTG/HLN/AIN/DNE/TAM/)