Stopping Reckless ‘Mudik’ Travelers
If there is no mudik ban, in May as many as 83 million people (33 percent) will return home for Lebaran nationally. Especially from the Greater Jakarta area, there will be as many as 10.3 million people.
The Idul Fitri tradition of mudik (exodus) occurring during the Covid-19 pandemic is a sociocultural phenomenon that poses a health risk.
Traveling home for mudik is an annual tradition, and traditions are evolutive or difficult to change, as stated by Williamson (2000), a figure of new institutional economics, with its 4-Level Analysis.
From the perspective of social capital, there needs to be an understanding between people going on exodus and their relatives in their hometowns, whether their parents, families or the communities in their hometown, that going home in the middle of a pandemic could endanger each other\'s health, especially if the travelers are coming from a Covid-19 "red zone". Fukuyama (2001) states that social capital is an instantiated informal norm to develop cooperation, including in the context of a pandemic.
The government, through the Coordinating Human Development and Culture Minister, on 26 March, finally officially banned the 2021 mudik from 6 to 17 May. The mudik ban this year is in accordance with the directive of President Joko Widodo, delivered on 23 March 2021.
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Responding to the mudik ban, Transportation Ministerial Regulation No. 13/2021 concerning transportation control during the Idul Fitri
Period 1442 H/2021 was issued. This regulation prohibits the operation of all modes of transportation for mudik purposes, and provides limited exemptions. However, logistics transportation will continue as usual.
Strong reason
The mudik ban this year is of course very reasonable. First, the Covid-19 vaccination program is only at an early stage. As of 7 April 2021, only 9.78 million people (5.39 percent) had been vaccinated for phase 1 of the overall target of 181,554,465 people. Herd immunity is far from being achieved.
Also read: Keep Watchful Eye on Prevalent COVID-19
Second, from empirical experience, every time there is a long holiday, it is always followed by an increase in new daily Covid-19 cases. Based on data from the Covid-19 task force, last year\'s Idul Fitri holiday resulted in increases of 68 to 93 percent in new daily cases.
Throughout 2020, the spike in the number of daily cases continued to show a dramatic upward trend, in the months of July, August, October and December. The increase in daily new cases reached a "top score" of 8,369 as of 3 December 2020.
Entering 2021, the trend of increasing daily cases continued after the Christmas and New Year holidays. The daily new case records in 2020 were surpassed on 8 January 2021, namely 10,617 cases, even up to 14,224 cases (16 January) and 14,518 cases (30 January).
Also read: Keep Watchful Eye on Prevalent COVID-19
Third, maintaining the downward trend after the daily new case record on 30 January. Since the beginning of February 2021, the trend of daily new cases has shown a decline, namely from a high of 10,614 (19 February) to 5,008 (29 March) and 4,549 (6 April). The trend of decreasing new cases needs to be maintained, even if it is reduced to below 2,000 cases.
Potential spike in new cases
The results of a survey conducted recently by the Transportation Ministry, involving as many as 61,988 respondents, show that if there is no mudik ban, in May as many as 83 million people (33 percent) will return home for Lebaran nationally. Especially from the Greater Jakarta area, there will be as many as 10.3 million people.
The main destination areas for mudik are Central Java (37.07 percent), West Java (22.82 percent) and East Java (14 percent).
Also read: Government Pledges Stricter Control of Exodus Ban
We tried to calculate potential travelers from Greater Jakarta. Of the 10.3 million travelers (2.94 million heads of families) from this megapolitan area, there are people without symptoms (OTG) who have the potential to transmit Covid-19 when interacting with communities in their hometown areas, especially in regency and rural areas.
The results of random antigen rapid testing during the end of the 2020 holiday conducted by the Transportation Ministry from 24 December 2020 to 1 January 2021 at 14 bus terminals and the vehicle weigh station (UPPKB) can be used as a reference. From a total sample of 6,607 people, 6,169 people were public and private transport passengers and 418 logistics vehicle crews.
The test results show that as many as 121 public and private transport passengers and four logistics vehicle crews tested positive. Thus, in general, from the results of the randomized test, 125 of the 6,607 samples (1.9 percent) were OTG Covid-19.
With this parameter, of the total 10.3 million Greater Jakarta travelers, 194,869 people have the potential for OTG. With a reproduction rate of 1.5 alone, if mudik is not banned, it means that there will be at least 292,304 new cases post-Idul Fitri 2021. This number excludes the untreated OTG that will encounter others for around two weeks (incubation period) after the peak season of Idul Fitri.
Insisting on mudik
In addition to the complete regulations, the effectiveness of the 2021 homeward ban policy requires consistent enforcement in the field. This is because, although there is a ban on going home, based on the research results of the Transportation Ministry above, there is still a national potential for "reckless" homeward travelers of 11 percent or 27.6 million people, some of whom try to go home before 6 May 2021.
This figure is down compared to last year\'s 19.48 percent, but it is still “terrible”, with all the consequences and implications.
So, enforcement of the rules in the field is very important to suppress the potential of "reckless" travelers by only 1 percent. Enforcement requires coordination between related agencies, namely the National Police Traffic Corps (Korlantas), Military Police (POM TNI), the Transportation Ministry, the Health Ministry and local administrations.
Also read: Maintain Consistency
The joint team of officials will be deployed at 333 checkpoints on the homeward trip route from Lampung to Bali. The checkpoints that have access to referral hospitals are located on the toll road, the Java northern coast (Pantura) route, the Central Java route and the southern Java route. The limitations on mobility will be accompanied by the possibility of extending the GeNose test, for both non-homeward travelers and those who violate the Idul Fitri mudik ban.
What about the "reckless" travelers who go on mudik before 6 May 2021?
For the marginalized urban people who do not go on mudik, rewards need to be given in the form of social assistance and/or other incentives ahead of Idul Fitri.
The extension of public activity restrictions (PPKM) in areas likely to be a source of homeward travelers and the main destinations of homeward travelers is one solution, in addition to tightening health protocol requirements and standards for travelers. Meanwhile, in hometown destinations, the Covid-19-alert villages need to prepare for the arrival of travelers, including preparing quarantine places.
The reward and punishment mechanism needs to be implemented considering that the ban on homeward travel also applies to state officials and state-owned/regional-owned enterprises. Private companies need to ensure that their employees know about the mudik ban by applying sanctions and incentives.
For the marginalized urban people who do not go on mudik, rewards need to be given in the form of social assistance and/or other incentives ahead of Idul Fitri. They mostly live in simple rented houses in narrow urban alleys, especially in the mega-urban areas of Greater Jakarta. This should be the concern of the relevant ministries and the provincial/regency/municipality administrations in the area of the main source of these homeward travelers.
Salus Populi Suprema Lex Esto!
Wihana Kirana Jaya, Professor at Economic and Business Faculty, Gadjah Mada University
This article was translated by Kurniawan Siswoko.