Year-end Holiday, Yogyakarta City Deploys Covid-19 Task Force Officers to Tourist Sites

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The government of Yogyakarta City has begun preparing to anticipate the potential transmission of Covid-19 which will continue to grow until mid-November. This anticipation is especially to confront the overflow of tourists in the city of Yogyakarta during this time of the year-end holiday.

"We deploy Covid-19 Task Force officers in places where tourists gather in the city of Yogyakarta," said the Acting Mayor of Yogyakarta City, Sumadi, Wednesday, November 16, 2022.

The Monitoring Points Throughout Yogyakarta City

The main monitoring point is along the Sumbu Filosofi area which includes Tugu Jogja - Mangkubumi Street or Margo Utomo - Malioboro Street - Kilometer Zero Point - North Square to South Square. The task force officers will be monitoring the activities in the area and remind the public to maintain health protocols.

"Officers will be supplying masks during health protocols operations because sometimes people giving excuses like they forget to bring their masks," Sumadi added.

The Yogyakarta City government is aware that it will not be easy to monitor the movement of tourists which continues to increase in number. "Tourist visits to the city of Yogyakarta until the end of this year will reach nearly 7 million people because as of September alone, there have been 5.1 million people from the original target of 2 million people," said Sumadi.

With the potential for an overflowing in tourist arrival during the year-end holidays, Sumadi said, the local government also has no authority to forbid their activities. This is because the Community Activities Restrictions Enforcement or CARE (PPKM) in Yogyakarta is still in Level 1 which allows activities including tourism.

People Starting to Ignore Health Protocols

Yunianto Dwi Sutono, the Coordinator for the Prevention of the Covid-19 Task Force for the City of Yogyakarta, said that the condition of Covid-19 had recently started to rise due to a lot of people's activities. Especially on weekends, when many tourists visit and ignore the health protocols.

"At the end of this year's holiday, we set up health and security posts, where the Covid-19 protocol task force will be placed in specific designated posts to remind tourists to wear masks, keeping their distance and reduce crowds," he said.

The Head of the Yogyakarta City Health Office, Emma Rahmi Aryani, said that the current positive cases of Covid-19 are hardly detected from its origin because many people were starting to come and go. Most of the Covid-19 cases were only detected during checking when accessing health services.

Therefore, she said, health protocols will be a way to protect oneself and others. "We have issued a circular letter to warn all hospitals because the prediction is that late December 2022 or early January 2023 will be the peak phase of the Covid-19 case," he said.

PRIBADI WICAKSONO (CONTRIBUTOR) | IMAJI LASAHIDO (INTERN)

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