Doni Monardo: It's Possible to Forever Coexist with COVID-19

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Doni Monardo, the head of the national COVID-19 mitigation task force, confirmed there had been no sign of the end of the novel coronavirus pandemic thus far. Thus, he called on people to adapt to the new situation.

“So far, there is no institution that dares to state when COVID pandemic will end, and there is no certainty as to when the vaccine can be found. So it’s very possible that we will forever coexist with COVID,” said Doni in a limited meeting via video conference on Monday, May 18.

The government is presently still deliberating the concept of a new normal. Doni claimed the government was mulling over strategies to deal with challenges in the new normal era, including the relaxation of social restrictions.

Doni said the task force was giving inputs on the importance of preconditions through surveys and studies regarding the right time to ease the social restrictions, as well as when the strategy could be carried out.

“Bapak President has just ordered us to study which regions can be allowed to relax [the restrictions]. Of course, the regions are the green zones, and as we observed 34 Indonesia’s provinces, several of them relatively have low COVID-19 cases,” Doni added.

However, he asserted that data-based research played a key role and would be the basis of decision-making. He added that he did not want to issue reckless decisions that would instead worsen the situation.

EGI ADYATAMA