3rd Assignment

Name : I Made Wisnu Buana

Reg. No. : 20SSMA74

Course : M.A Sociology

Class : Society In India : Contemporary Issues

Questions: Describe your experience during Lockdown in your area

Answer:

INDONESIA, COVID-19, LOCKDOWN? HOW DO I SURVIVE?

The year 2020 can be likened to a year full of panic, anxiety and fear for the entire
world population on planet earth. How not, almost all parts of the world have been affected
by a new virus known as the corona virus/Covid 19. The virus was first discovered in a city
in China, precisely in the city of Wuhan, in Huabei province.
The virus, whose symptoms are almost similar to the flu, spreads so fast and has
killed nearly 100 people a day in the early days of this case. There has been some speculation
about the origin of this virus. Regalado (2021) said that this virus emerged from bats that
were consumed by people in Wuhan. Furthermore, Regalado also said that the existence of
bats as spreaders of the virus is a fact where a similar thing also happened in 2003 when
SARS, which at that time had panicked the world, spread from South China and sickened
8000 people. This is reinforced by the existence of a market for selling these animals in
Wuhan, which is visited by many buyers, as a result of the trend to consume extreme foods.
This is also what makes it a challenge in itself to try to make these animals as food
ingredients
But there are also those who speculate that this virus came from a leak in a laboratory
in Wuhan. As is known, China built a laboratory that is claimed to be the largest laboratory in
all of China, which was established specifically to research viruses. Allegedly, there are
hundreds of viruses studied there. And not a coincidence either, which is located very close to
the animal market. The same thing was also said by Maxmen (2021) through his writing on
the Nature.com website, he said theoretically, Covid-19 could come from the laboratory in
several ways. Researchers may have collected SARS-CoV-2 from an animal and kept it in
their laboratory for study, or they may have created it by engineering the genome of the
coronavirus. In this scenario, someone in the lab might accidentally or intentionally get
infected by a virus, and then spread it to other people thereby triggering a pandemic
Apart from that, many countries have decided to implement lockdown measures as
the best way to suppress the spread of this virus. However, each country has its own way of
dealing with this, as is the case with Indonesia. According to Intan (2020) in her writing on
the VOA Indonesia website, she said that Indonesia through President Joko Widodo was
adamant not to impose a "lockdown" in the face of the corona virus outbreak. According to
him, this option is not suitable for Indonesia.
President Joko Widodo said the reason why Indonesia had not imposed a lockdown.
According to him, not all countries are suitable for the lockdown option, including Indonesia.
Until now, he believes that the option of maintaining a safe distance of at least one meter or
social distancing and rapid examination or rapid tests can overcome the problem of the
corona virus outbreak that has hit Indonesia. Therefore, Jokowi hopes that the public can
carry out these recommendations. Furthermore, Jokowi also said that if Indonesia decided to
implement a lockdown policy, it would potentially cause the economy to be disrupted.
However, in the middle of June 2021, the trend of Indonesian daily cases increased
sharply. This is exacerbated by the presence of the Delta variant that entered Indonesia which
spread very quickly and easily. Jesus (2021) said that the delta variant of Covid-19 can spread
6 times faster than the Alpha variant. Only by passing each other without wearing a mask can
make a person infected. This is what causes Indonesia to experience a drastic increase as of
this writing.
In connection with this, President Jokowi took decisive steps so that cases could
decrease drastically. According to the website Thejakartapost.com (2021), due to the
increasing number of Covid-19 cases in Indonesia, the government has finally implemented
an emergency measure of Imposing Restrictions on Community Activities (IRCA), starting
from July 02 to July 20. These measures aim to halve the current daily number of virus cases
to below 10,000, and include tighter restrictions on movement and air travel, bans on eating
in restaurants and the closure of non-essential offices. The emergency measures to impose
restrictions on community activities were implemented first on the island of Java, the most
populous island and on the tourist island in Bali.
Starting from this, I live in a small village on the island of Sumatra, precisely in
Karang Anyar Village, East Semendawai District, East OKU Regency, South Sumatra
Province. During this time of the Covid-19 pandemic, we who are in rural areas are not too
affected by this Covid-19. We used to leave the house without wearing masks and go to work
in the fields or in the garden. However, after there were new cases last June in our village as a
result of people from outside the island coming to the village and carrying the virus, our
behavior immediately changed. People go out and carry out their routine activities to wear
masks. Every shop is also equipped with hand washing equipment and village officials
immediately rushed to create a mandatory village of masks. As a result of this incident, our
lifestyle began to change to be more strict on health protocols.
But now things are back to normal, the Covid-19 cases in our village have
disappeared and people are doing their normal activities. However, there is a unique
phenomenon that I have observed in my current village community. Since the new case
disappeared, many people are still using the health protocol by wearing a mask or
maintaining a distance. However, many people do not comply with these rules. They only
obey when the disease exists and actually attacks, but when it (new cases) is no longer
there/detected anymore, they seem to be ignoring health protocols.
In addition, we who are in the village are also facilitated to implement a free
vaccination program. Vaccination begins with health workers, followed by the elderly and
finally people aged 18 years and over. In myself, I have carried out the vaccination program
for two doses. In terms of this vaccination, again I found something unique in it. In the early
days of this program, very few people were interested in vaccinating. This is because they are
afraid of the effects of this vaccine, even more so in the media reporting various dangerous
side effects of vaccines, even causing death. As a result of this fear, they are reluctant to carry
out vaccinations. But now it's the opposite, they are very enthusiastic about implementing it,
even when I carried out the second dose of vaccination, I saw a very long queue from people
who wanted to do this free vaccination.
Based on some of my writings above, I have come to the conclusion that my
experience with the effects of the lockdown does not have much effect on our village area.
We usually carry out our activities as if there were no cases of Covid-19 before. In addition,
Indonesia also did not take the lockdown measures as in India. Indonesia only takes steps to
limit the population in an area with a high number of positive cases.

References
1. Maxmen, Amy & Mallapaty, Smriti. (2021). The COVID lab-leak hypothesis: what
scientists do and don't know. Accessed on 09 July 2021, from
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01529-3

2. Regalado, Antonio (2021). No one can find the animal that gave people covid-19.
Retrieved 09 July 2021, from https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/03/26/1021263/bat-
covid-coronavirus-cause-origin-wuhan/&prev=search&pto=aue

3. Intan, Gita (2020) . Why is Indonesia Not 'Lockdown'? This is Jokowi's answer (Why
Indonesia Not 'Lockdown'? This is Jokowi's answer). Accessed on 09 July 2021, from
https://www.voaindonesia.com/a/why-indonesia-no-lockdown-ini-answer-
jokowi/5343239.html

4. Jesus, Erin G.D. (2021). What experts know so far about the delta variant. Retrieved 09
July 2021, from https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-covid-delta-variant-
transmission-vaccines

5. Thejakartapost.com. (2021). 2021 Government to bring in COVID-19 emergency measures

until July 20. Accessed 09 July 2021, from
https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2021/07/01/government-to-bring-in-emergency-
measures -until-july-20-.html.