Bekasi to Guard Borders to Curb Coronavirus Spread

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Bekasi city administration planned to limit the movement of people by guarding the regional borders in response to the coronavirus spread, pending on the approval from the local consultative leadership board (Muspida).

Bekasi Mayor Rahmat Effendi rejected the idea of lockdown. “When we have a meeting with Muspida later and the plan is approved, roads connecting the city, Bekasi Regency, Bogor, Depok, and Jakarta will be guarded by Public Order Agency (Satpol PP) and Transportation Agency,” Bekasi Mayor Rahmat Effendi said on Sunday, March 29.

According to him, a maximum of eight officers equipped with a thermal gun to check people’s body temperature will stand the guard. However, the safeguard will not be imposed on national or provincial roads.

“If a person is willing to go out Bekasi city and his or her body’s temperature is above 38 degrees Celcius when checked by the Thermo gun, he or she will be asked to return for isolation. This will start on Monday, inshallah,” Rahmat explained.

Rahmat reiterated that his side will only conduct the checking, rather than enforce a territorial closure as the anticipatory measure against the coronavirus spread. “This is part of our efforts to suppress the spread of the virus infection,” he underlined.

Rahmat went on to say that Bekasi has now had 34 patients of the virus disease or Covid-19, with 15 of them detected through mass rapid tests. Meanwhile, only one person had been declared cured. As the number of positive cases was rising, he added, the virus spread was quite evenly distributed.

ADI WARSONO (CONTRIBUTOR)