Indonesia Corona Virus #10    May 4, 2020

  • Domestic Business Travel:  Still allowed, according to AICC’s inquiry to the Coordinating Ministry for the Economy.  Normal passenger (but not business) travel remains banned for the fasting month.  International business travel is very limited.
  • Testing Up/Detections Down: A review of the ratio of new COVID-19 cases to the number of daily PCR (molecular) tests indicate a drop-off during the last week of April. Even after having doubled, Indonesia’s PCR-testing level is still low relative to its population size. Nonetheless, while daily tests have doubled, the daily moving
    average of new cases detected has remained flat The detection rate has therefore dropped by more than two-thirds.
  • Death Rates Flatten: Official data for confirmed Covid-19 deaths nationwide shows a four percent decline week-on-week. But Jakarta burials using Covid-19 protocols – which might be a more accurate indicator – have dropped 20 percent week-on-week.
  •  Factory Activity off 33%:  Factory activity has collapsed with only one third of manufacturing companies and workers operating at present. 15,000 manufacturing companies were still operating at present out of a total of 40,000 in normal times.  70% of textile companies have shut their operations.
  • Q1 GDP Lowest in 18 Years: The median forecast of 15 analysts in a Reuters poll was for Indonesia to expand 4.04% from a year earlier, compared with 4.97% in the previous quarter. Predictions are that Q2 will indicate a recession. The poll’s median for 2020 GDP growth is 2.3%, the lowest in more than two decades, and compared with 5% last year.
  • Shortage of PPE Not For Lack of Funds: “Let me explain one more time that the problem with PPE and ventilators is not because we cannot afford it. It’s not because [there is no] money. The bottleneck is in the supply side,” Sri said in a tele-meeting with the DPR’s Commission XI, Thursday, April 30.

==========================================================================

Topeng Sehat:
AICC launched a fundraising campaign with University of Indonesia alumni based in the US to purchase and donate critically needed respirator masks for medical workers and personal protective equipment for supplier communities. DONATE NOW