Millions of Indonesians get ready to travel out of outbreak centre

Jakarta

MOST countries around the world are battling the coronavirus pandemic with severe travel restrictions, especially to and from areas hit hard by the deadly virus.

But in Jakarta, the heart of Southeast Asia's biggest economy and the epicentre of its outbreak, the mass migration is just beginning.

An estimated 2.5 million migrant workers are expected to leave Indonesia's capital for their hometowns and villages after a commercial shutdown and new social distancing guidelines take effect on Friday, according to the Jakarta administration.

The restrictions, which do not include a travel ban, are part of an effort to contain the city's coronavirus outbreak. Greater Jakarta is home to just 11 per cent of the country's population but two-thirds of country's 280 deaths and almost 3,300 infections, official data show.

Late spring is typically a peak travel time, as roughly one out of every eight Indonesians head home ahead of Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim festival marking the end of Ramadan. But the new restrictions in Jakarta, which include the closure of schools and offices, limits on public transportation and a ban on public gatherings of more than five people, are drying up work for the city's substantial population of day labourers, prompting them to get on the road sooner rather than later.

Like the early days of the outbreak in China, which coincided with Chinese New Year travel, the exodus during Ramadan may become the "perfect storm for Indonesia", said Greg Barton, a professor of global Islamic politics at Deakin University in Australia.

"If infected people end up in Kalimantan or Sumatra, or even in more remote areas of Java, it would quickly overwhelm the local resources and areas that were relatively unscathed," Dr Barton said. "It's exactly what you don't want to have happening."

President Joko Widodo has rejected calls for the kinds of travel restrictions and regional quarantines imposed in other parts of the world, saying such harsh measures would hurt the poor.

The worst phase of the pandemic has yet to come. Projections from the nation's intelligence agency and leading researchers suggest as many as 95,000 people could be infected by the end of next month. Eventually the cases could number more than two million if strict measures are not put in place to curb the outbreak, said Pandu Riono, a professor of public health at the University of Indonesia.

As it is, he said, the country failed to prepare adequately and now faces shortages of protective equipment and supplies for medical workers. More than two dozen doctors working at hospitals dealing with the virus patients have died, according the Indonesian Medical Association.

Analysts expect Jokowi, as the president is called, to implement a complete lockdown at some point. For now, he has left mitigation measures to the regional governors and domestic travel is unrestricted.

On Thursday, the president banned government employees, military and police personnel and those employed by state-owned companies from travelling during Ramadan, while appealing to the general public to avoid trips in view of the pandemic. BLOOMBERG