Day: July 19, 2022

Posted on

COVID-19 peak forecast may change due to infected Hajj pilgrims

The projection of a peak in COVID-19 cases in Indonesia at July-end might change due to the wave of imported cases from Hajj pilgrims returning from Saudi Arabia, Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin stated.

“We will see the development in cases after Hajj pilgrims start returning from the Holy Land. Maybe there will be a change in the prediction since those pilgrims might have been confirmed positive for COVID-19,” Sadikin noted during the launch of the BioColoMelt-Dx molecular diagnostic kit at Darmais Hospital, Jakarta, on Tuesday.

However, the minister has not specifically stated the number of Indonesian pilgrims, who have been confirmed positive for COVID-19.

Sadikin remarked that the Ministry of Health, along with epidemiology experts, estimated that the peak of COVID-19 cases in Indonesia would occur at the end of July 2022, reaching 20 thousand more active cases.

Initially, this prediction was calculated based on observations in South Africa, as the country of origin, for the spread of BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants in several countries, including Indonesia, where they constitute more than 81 percent of the cases.

The surge in cases in South Africa in the past month was only a third of the increase in cases at the peak of the Omicron BA.1 variant. Hospitalized patients constituted only a third of the Omicron peak, Sadikin added.

If Indonesia emulates the pattern that occurred in South Africa, it is estimated that the peak of cases in the country will reach 30 percent of the peak of Omicron, or the equivalent of 20 thousand patients, with sloping cases afterward.

In comparison with other countries, the increase recorded in India was almost the same as that in Indonesia. The surge in BA.4 and BA.5 cases was higher than that in the United Kingdom, Portugal, the United States, and Japan, the minister stated.

“France and the United States have over 100 thousand cases, including Singapore, Japan,” he disclosed.

Source: Antara News

Posted on

Potential for recession real in many countries: Indrawati

The potential for a recession due to rising benchmark interest rates, tightening liquidity, and rising food and energy prices, which have triggered a crisis of their own, is very real for many countries.

Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati made the remarks at the online launch of the IsDB Group’s Member Country Partnership Strategy (MCPS) for Indonesia for the period 2022–2025 in Jakarta on Tuesday.

“I hope that in this case, Indonesia will be able to continue navigating other additional challenges for our economy and now in the global economy,” she said.

Indonesia has prepared strategies to address many structural problems, including the quality of human resources, infrastructure, productivity, and competitiveness, she noted.

Handling human resource issues through education, research, and innovation, as well as in terms of health is not an easy task and will take some time, she said. This would require consistency in the medium to long term.

The second strategy the nation is focusing on is reforming the health system as the pandemic has opened up other aspects that need to be addressed in the health system, Indrawati disclosed.

“Indonesia is one of the few countries in the world that has successfully managed the pandemic, if you measure it across all indicators. However, we still need to improve our health management,” she pointed out.

She further said that navigating the threat of a pandemic, which has now been followed by another threat has not been an easy task for a country as large as Indonesia.

The threat is in the form of increasing inflation due to surging food and energy prices due to geopolitical situations, and rising inflation in many developed and developing countries, which has been followed by the tightening of monetary policies, namely increasing interest rates and tightening liquidity.

“This will create an additional threat that has the potential to disrupt many economies, especially those that are already in a very fragile situation,” she added.

Source: Antara News

Posted on

Ministry temporarily halts CPMI placement to Malaysia

The Manpower Ministry stated that the temporary stop to sending prospective Indonesian migrant workers (CPMI) to Malaysia was intended to protect them.

“We have temporarily stopped sending CPMI to Malaysia,” Head of the Center for Development of Manpower Policy at the Ministry of Manpower, Muhyiddin, stated after a coordination meeting with the Praya Work Training Center (BLK) in Central Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara (NTB), on Tuesday.

Muhyiddin noted that the ministry will not permanently halt the placement. However, the ministry was still awaiting an improvement in the CPMI deployment system to provide safety guarantees to Indonesian citizens looking to work abroad.

“This government policy is part of the protection for CPMI,” Muhyiddin stated.

Earlier, the Manpower and Transmigration Service of Central Lombok District, NTB, stated that Malaysia was still a preferred country by CPMI to work abroad.

“The CPMI registration in Central Lombok currently reaches 200 people per day,” Head of the Manpower Placement Division at the Central Lombok Manpower and Transmigration Service Syamsul Rijal noted.

Earlier, Minister of Manpower, Ida Fauziyah, stated that Indonesia had temporarily suspended the placement of CPMI in the domestic sector to Malaysia, as the country did not follow the agreement in the MoU to implement a one-channel system on April 1, 2022.

The two countries had signed an MoU on the PMI Placement and Protection in Domestic Sector in Malaysia on April 1, 2022, which stated that placement through a one-channel system was the only way to place domestic sector PMIs in Malaysia.

However, the Indonesian representative in Malaysia found evidence that Malaysia was still implementing another system disparate from the one-channel system that had been agreed on, namely, the online maid system (SMO) managed by the Malaysian Ministry of Home Affairs through the Malaysian Immigration Department.

“This is certainly not in accordance with the agreement and commitment of the two countries because the placement should use a ‘one channel system,'” she emphasized.

Source: Antara News

Posted on

Kominfo Ministry holds hoax immunity class for public

The Ministry of Communication and Informatics (Kominfo) along with the Indonesian Anti-Slander Community and Cybercreation (MAFINDO) organized a hoax immunity digital literacy training for people.

It must be acknowledged that high utilization of the internet in Indonesia carries various risks, the Ministry’s Informatics Application Director General Samuel Abrijani Pangerapan noted through a statement on Tuesday.

These risks include online fraud, hoaxes, cyberbullying, and other negative contents, he affirmed.

To this end, the rising use of technology should be followed by adequate digital literacy capacity, so that the people can use digital technology in a productive, smart, and accurate manner, he remarked.

According to the Indonesian National Digital Literacy Index Survey undertaken by the ministry and Katadata Insight Center in 2021, Indonesia is currently placed in the “medium” digital literacy category, with an index value of 3.49 in the range of 1 to 5.

The result of the hoax-related survey conducted by the two institutions also shows that there are still people, who spread hoaxes.

In the survey, some 11.9 percent of the respondents admitted to having spread hoaxes in 2021. This figure increased by 11.2 percent from 2020.

Hence, a digital literacy class was held in Kendari, Southeast Sulawesi, with participants comprising several communities and universities in the region.

The program aims to develop the people’s critical thinking capability to the information that they receive to realize Indonesia #MakinCakapDigital (More Digital Fluent).

The hoax immunity class was held to educate people on the definition of hoax as well as simple categorization and instruments that can be used to verify the facts of an information.

MAFINDO Presidium Head Septiaji Eko Nugroho emphasized the need for people to learn how to differentiate facts from hoaxes.

“This social audit is a method to figure out whether the profile or content that we see on social media is a fact or hoax,” he explained.

“We need to have the skills, need to have the capability to carryout independent fact-checking, to know whether there is an edit in the video or photo content,” he stressed.

Source: Antara News

Posted on

East Timor Hopes to Join ASEAN Under Indonesia Presidency Next Year

BOGOR, INDONESIA — East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta said Tuesday during a visit to Indonesia that he hoped to boost trade ties between the countries and seal a decades-long bid by his nation to join the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) next year.

Ramos-Horta met his counterpart Joko Widodo on his first state visit to neighboring Indonesia since he was elected in April for a second stint as president.

He previously served as president of East Timor, which is also known as Timor Leste, between 2007 and 2012.

“Timor Leste as part of Southeast Asia has fulfilled many of the requirements necessary for a functioning economy and democracy so … will be a productive member of ASEAN,” he said, noting he hoped his young country could join the group when Indonesia takes over the presidency next year.

East Timor, which applied for ASEAN membership in 2011, currently holds observer status.

Speaking at the presidential palace in Bogor, south of Jakarta, the Indonesian president said his country had invested $818 million in East Timor, mainly in energy, banking and communication businesses.

“We’ve agreed to increase trade between both countries,” said Widodo, who is widely known as Jokowi.

Official Indonesia data shows trade between the countries was worth around $250 million last year.

Heavily dependent on revenue from oil and gas, the half-island nation of 1.3 million people has grappled with diversifying its economy and reducing high rates of poverty.

Indonesia invaded the former Portuguese colony in 1975 and East Timor only gained full independence in 2002 after a long and bloody struggle to end an often-brutal occupation.

Ramos-Horta, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his peaceful efforts to end the conflict, said he welcomed deepening trade ties with Jakarta and Indonesia’s commitment to East Timor joining the 10-member ASEAN regional grouping.

Source: Voice of America

Proudly powered by WordPress