Items
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Indonesia
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2020-04-30
The Indonesian Muhammadiyah Movement and the COVID-19 Pandemic
This article describes the ways in which the Indonesian Muslim Muhammadiyah organization responded to the onset of the pandemic. -
2021-07-13
Indonesia’s Daily Cases Surpass India, Marking New Epicenter
Indonesia surpassed India’s daily Covid-19 case numbers, marking a new Asian virus epicenter as the spread of the highly-contagious delta variant drives up infections in Southeast Asia’s largest economy. The country has seen its daily case count cross 40,000 for three straight days -- including a record high of 54,517 on Wednesday -- up from less than 10,000 a month ago. Officials are concerned that the more transmissible new variant is now spreading outside of the country’s main island, Java, and could exhaust hospital workers and supplies of oxygen and medication. Indonesia’s current numbers are still far from India’s peak of 400,000 daily cases in May, and its total outbreak of 2.7 million is barely a tenth of the Asian giant’s 30.9 million. India, with a population roughly five times the size of Indonesia’s 270 million people, saw daily infections drop below 39,000 on Wednesday as its devastating outbreak wanes. The Southeast Asian country reported about 900 deaths daily on average in the past seven days -- compared to just 181 a month ago -- while India reported an average of 1,027 daily fatalities. -
2021-06-27
virALLanguages
virALLanguages is a volunteer-led project that creates COVID safety content in different endangered languages. The project runs a YouTube channel and Facebook page where they post videos with information about COVID in rare languages, and their website also has a collection of downloadable materials in those languages. Beyond translating material, the project also seeks to tailor awareness materials to members of a community to be in touch with the speakers of those languages by using culturally-aware vocabulary and figures of speech. The attached URIs contain, in order: 1: The main page of the website 2: All of the videos the project has made, including YouTube links and downloadable videos, on the project website 3: An Internet Archive page with the videos the project has made -
2021-03-18
Indonesia's Foreign Travel Restrictions [March 2021]
This article shines some light on the travel restrictions in Indonesia at the moment. It reports that Indonesian citizens are urged to come back into the country if they are travelling abroad. This is to limit the distance, and to assure that citizens can come back before travel becomes more difficult. However, they listed eight foreign countries (Iran, Italy, Vatican City, Spain, France, Germany, Switzerland and Great Britain) in which they would ban arrivals from. If any person had travel records that showed that they were in the listed countries in the past 14 days, they would be banned from entering the country. This article was personally translated. -
2020-08-21
How Indonesia's Education System Is Faring
"Since March 2020, students, parents, and teachers in Indonesia have been grappling with school closures affecting 62.5 million students from pre-primary to higher education." With such a socioeconomically diverse population, it's difficult to gauge just how accessible isolated learning would really be during the pandemic. The Ministry of Education and Culture had to move quickly to assure that there was some structure and guidelines set in place for educational institutions to follow. Unfortunately, as internet access isn't quite the common luxury many households have, the ministry sought partnership with television programming stations. This was to, at least, provide educational material to those who have access to televisions but not internet. The article goes on to provide four ways in which they hoped would assist in the growing education deficiency. 1) Develop more solutions to reach students without internet access; 2) Increase connectivity and train teachers to deliver more effective and interactive online learning; 3) Identify and support those falling behind with differentiated instruction; 4) Support disadvantaged students to return to school. -
2021-03-07
A Few Changes To My City's Mayoral Election
Early December 2020, a local election was held in my city for mayor (and deputy mayor). We didn’t pick between candidates, but between a candidate and an empty candidate box. So, no one else was running against the candidate, but we still had to vote. Apparently this was the first time in the city's history that there was an empty candidate box. This wasn’t my first time voting, but it was my first time voting during a pandemic. I didn’t have to go, and neither did any of the members of my neighborhood community. Like always, we would be given invitations to vote if we’re eligible, and I had gotten my invitation a few days before. My brother was appointed as one of the assistants of the neighborhood voting stations — to manage people voting and to help count the votes. This wasn’t his first time doing this either, and considering how he had to work restlessly until the votes were tallied the time before, I was rather worried. He and the rest of the staff voted a day or so before the voting was available to the public. Again, we didn’t have to go. However, I was informed that only an estimated 300 people in my neighborhood were given approval to vote this time around. Later, I found out that at this voting station, only about half showed up and voted. I don’t know what the usual estimate was before for reference, but I must say that there used to be around three voting stations within walking distance of my house. The factors that come into play here, to my knowledge, are the pandemic and that this was a local election. Besides that, our invitations had specific times for when we should’ve gotten there, like appointments, but we didn’t get to choose when that was. I got a bright and early 7:00AM - 8:00AM. I doubt they were going to be strict about this, but I still got there a little after 7:00AM. As for the voting process, it was the same as always. Provide my invitation and identification card, wait for verification, get my paper ballot, show a panel that my ballot was free of tampering, cast my vote, drop it into the box, get my pinky finger inked (it was marker refill ink) for proof, and was on my way. The difference here was that we had to wash our hands at a makeshift sink area, wear plastic gloves (the type you handle food with), and well, keep our masks on. We all threw away our plastic gloves after voting, then washed our hands again. https://tirto.id/siapa-pemenang-pilkada-balikpapan-rahmad-thohari-vs-kotak-kosong-f7Wj (for context) -
2021-01-24
The Vaccine Indonesians Are Getting & The Conditions
Indonesians are being distributed a vaccine called "CoronaVac" from a biopharmaceutical company based in China called Sinovac Biotech. They are working with PT Biofarma, which is an Indonesian-based company of a similar nature. On January 18, 2021, Dr. Siti Nadia Tarmizi from the Ministry of Health spoke publicly about the vaccine’s conditions. In accordance with the regulations set by the World Health Organization (WHO), certain conditions must be met before the vaccine can be administered. This article from the main Indonesian government website states nine of them. Among them are those who have not screened positive for COVID-19 or have been sick from COVID-19-like symptoms such as a runny nose or cough in the 7 days prior. This extends to those who are immuno-compromised, have cancer, and many similar illnesses. Pregnant women are also discouraged from getting the vaccine. There are more conditions listed, however I don’t entirely understand the potential medical jargon. The article provided by IDN Times is more for this doctor’s credibility as she is one of the COVID-19 spokespersons for Indonesia. She is also the manager for the national AIDS division at the Ministry of Health in Indonesia. These articles were personally translated. -
2021-01-24
Indonesia’s Vaccinations: In Progress
As of January 13, 2021, vaccinations have started its distribution across Indonesia — hitting 34 provinces. In light of this progress, it should also be noted that two (2) doses of the vaccine are recommended after a 14-day interval. A card will be issued to those who have had their first dose as well as a reminder for their second. The first article by Tirto concludes with instructions on what to do once the individual gets to the vaccination facility. The second article by Kompas says the same information, but also includes the reason why two (2) doses are necessary in the first place. These articles were personally translated. -
2021-01-24
Public Vaccination by Indonesian President Joko Widodo
In hopes to raise awareness and rally more supporters of the vaccination, Indonesian President Joko Widodo made a public showing of him getting his first COVID-19 vaccination on January 13, 2021. The one administering the vaccination is the head doctor of the president’s medical team, Dr. Abdul Muthalib. As seen on the red banner behind the seated president, the text states that vaccination is safe and halal (safe for those practicing Islam). These articles were personally translated. -
2021-01-24
COVID-19 Vaccination Is Free For All Indonesians
Straight from the Indonesian COVID-19 website, it was published on December 19, 2020 that citizens would be given the vaccination for free and without any conditions. This goes for people who do and do not have health insurance. Since the vaccines hadn’t arrived yet at the date of publication, they also emphasized and encouraged that everyone should continue taking precautions (i.e. wearing masks, washing hands with soap). In addition to this publication, Indonesian news source Kompas reported similarly the day prior. President Joko Widodo (through a representative) confirmed that the vaccine would be free for all Indonesian citizens. The Jakarta Post had also confirmed this information. These articles were personally translated. -
2021-01-24
Complications in Health and Finances for Indonesians Seeking COVID-19 Vaccinations
It is of common knowledge to Indonesians that insurance is a luxury. This article, digitally published on January 24, 2021, by the Jakarta Post starts by saying that “a third of the population lacks health insurance.” The author goes on to describe the story of a family who had a diabetic relative. Government-funded as well as private medical facilities were not working quickly enough to provide the vaccination for them, and the hospitalization was becoming very costly for them. Corroborating with the predicament, an article by the Ministry of Health claims that roughly 22% of a total of 598,483 health workers have been vaccinated (as of January 22, 2021). They’ve lost an estimation of 600 health workers thus far, and are trying to rally the support of the citizens to get through the pandemic through vaccination. This article was personally translated. -
2021-01-24
Registration Methods for the COVID-19 Vaccination in Indonesia
In this Indonesian article on the main government website, they list out steps in which an individual can register to get themselves vaccinated. This article was digitally published on January 12, 2021, so the process is still ongoing. They provided four ways of registration: through a text message process when dialing *119#, through a phone application called “Pedulilindungi”, through the website http://pedulilindungi.id/ or through their local community officer. Furthermore, they did emphasize that their priority vaccinations, other than medical personnel, would include a numerous range of essential workers — such as the police, public transportation managers, and religious leaders. Indonesian news source Kompas digitally published the same information a few days prior while including that the text messages would not be charged. These articles were personally translated. -
2021-01-15
Changes To My Annual Holidays
My annual holidays consist of Eid al-Fitr, Christmas, and New Years. This is what happened in 2020. I think it's important to be able to document experiences from different walks of life. I don't know how many people would celebrate the first two in the same family, but they've been a big part of my life since I was born. -
2020-06-04
Jakarta enters transition phase to ease restrictions, extends PSBB to end of June
Easing from the PSBB (Large Scale Social Distancing) meant that most part of Jakarta had shown improvement (or a decrease) in the number of cases in most parts of Jakarta. -
2020-05-29
‘New normal’ aims to keep economy running: Minister
Due to the pandemic, economies around the world has been facing great difficulties. The 'New Normal' is the Indonesian government's plan in trying to keep the Indonesian economy running while still combating the pandemic by keeping the government's health precautionary measures. However, personally I disagree with the term 'New Normal' because we don't want social/physical distancing to be normal. Instead, I believe the term should be phrased as something that means transitioning back to the normal before the pandemic.