Indonesia to reopen schools with strict safety measures as daily COVID-19 cases decline

In certain areas of Indonesia's capital Jakarta, the schools are finally given permission to reopen from Monday after being closed for more than a year due to the coronavirus outbreak. This decision has been taken as the daily tally of fresh COVID-19 cases continue to drop. After the outbreak emerged, this is for the first time that nearly 610 Indonesian schools have cleared the Jakarta Education Agency's necessary inspections to reopen the schools, with several safety measures.  

Jakarta Vice Governor Ahmad Riza Patria told reporters on Monday, “We had been past the peak of the second wave of COVID-19 infections.” He further added that they are expecting to open all the schools by January. As per government official data, Jakarta has a total of 5,341 schools varying from kindergarten to high school. 

Indonesia schools to reopen with safety measures

Apart from Jakarta, a number of schools in other cities were set to resume from Monday. As the classes have recommenced, the previous government school guidelines have been modified. Indonesian students are not permitted to talk in the classroom, facemasks are a must all the time, and Indonesian students are not permitted to leave the classroom for recess. By offering lessons in two shifts, schools may reduce class capacity by half. Vaccination of teachers is absolutely required. In-person education in school will be combined with online learning mode. The number of students will progressively increase depending on the government's assessment of the COVID situation. 

COVID situation in Indonesia

On Sunday, the Indonesian Ministry of Health recorded 7,427 new cases in the previous 24 hours which is the lowest daily number since June 9. From the pinnacle on July 15, when almost 56,000 infections were reported in one day there has been a gradual drop. 

Being the world's fourth most populated country, Indonesia has reported over 4 million illnesses from the beginning of the outbreak. Jakarta, which was formerly the nation's COVID-19 hub, has seen a drop in both active and new instances since mid-July. As for the active cases, it is recorded that it went from more than 100,000 active instances per day to less than 8,000 and for new cases, it is seen that from more than 10,000 new infections per day to less than 500. 

Patients are also not getting sent away from hospitals as frequently it has been done previously.  According to the Central Jakarta Health Service, the bed occupancy rate at various Jakarta hospitals has dropped under 30%. 

While in the case of public activities, Limitations are being loosened in the capital city, which even the administration attributes with helping to relieve demand on hospitals. Since mid-August, officials in Jakarta have gradually reopened malls, worship places, as well as outdoor sports facilities with capacity restrictions and the need that visitors show proof of vaccination. 

Indonesia has begun immunising children aged from 12 to 18 years old from last month. The country began inoculating its citizens sooner than any other Southeast Asian nation. By March 2022, the government hopes to have inoculated over 208 million of its 270 million citizens, but officials have only completed full vaccination to about 34.8 million individuals and partial immunisation to another 26.7 million of the population. 

(Image Credit: AP)