October 8, 2021
President supports 5-day quarantine + Bali elephants left to starve + PeduliLindungi integrated with other apps + Weekend reads + more
Good morning!
Welcome to The Bali Beat for Friday, October 8. If you’re not a subscriber, please sign up here to have this newsletter emailed to your inbox every weekday morning, along with a Sunday evening summary of the past week’s Covid-19 and vaccination data. If you’re already a subscriber, thank you!
Please be sure to share The Bali Beat with your friends, family and anyone else in the community by clicking the button below. If you’re on Twitter, you can follow us there @thebalibeat.
*A paid subscription is NOT required to access this newsletter.* If you would like to support our news gathering efforts, please consider making a donation of US$5/month by becoming a contributing subscriber via the link above. If you’d prefer to make a one-time donation — of any amount — please click here.
Weather & Tides
Today’s Weather for Southern Bali
Today’s Tides
Meteorology, Climatology & Geophysics Council (Link)
Tide table from Tide-forecast.com.
Daily Covid Update
National Figures
Local Figures
NOTE: On August 6, Bali had 13,475 positive cases in treatment. Yesterday’s figure, of 605, represents a 95% drop in cases in treatment in only two months.
The Big News
“Minister Suggests President Supports Five-day Quarantine” from Antara Bali (Indonesian): Indonesian President Joko Widodo on Thursday asked his staff to prepare for the opening of tourism in Bali and the Riau Islands. "Evaluating activities related to mobility and seeing the situation in islands such as Bali or Riau Islands whose levels have dropped, they are asked to be prepared to be opened," Airlangga said. He said the meeting with the President also discussed the quarantine period for incoming foreign tourists. "In the meeting, the quarantine period was discussed with a situation like this, and the position became five days (quarantine)," said Airlangga.
Context: Other media reports have pointed out (Indonesian) that the Minister’s five-day plan is subject to approval by the BNPB, the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Transportation. Bali’s tourism industry has complained that an eight-day quarantine was too long.
“Bali Elephants Left to Starve” from Aljazeera: An elephant park in Bali left more than a dozen elephants to starve, and staff without pay after plummeting ticket sales due to COVID-19 forced it to close. Bali Elephant Camp offered a range of nature-based activities, and the elephants were sourced from breeding centres in Sumatra in a programme that was supposed to help stabilise the population. BEC was charging $230 for a half-hour elephant ride for two people. Photographs taken by a wildlife veterinarian at the park in May showed severely undernourished elephants. “You cannot imagine a skinny elephant until you see one,” said Femke Den Haas, a veterinarian who has been working to protect wildlife in Indonesia for 20 years. Three of BEC’s 14 elephants were adopted by an unidentified zoo on Java and the remaining 11 were relocated to Tasta Wildlife Park in Tabanan Regency. There in September, all 11 had been rehabilitated and regained weight.
“Pedulilindungi QR Codes Integrated With Dozens of Apps” from Antara: PeduliLindungi's QR Codes have been integrated with several applications to make them easy to use and to support the tracking of COVID-19 spread and monitoring of health protocols, Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said. Currently, 15 applications have been integrated into the PeduliLindungi digital ecosystem, including Bank Mandiri, BNI, Link Aja, Jaki, Grab, Gojek, besides 35 other partners who are processing PeduliLindungi QR Codes in their services. "Hopefully this cooperation can build a better health infrastructure in Indonesia in the future," Sadikin said on Thursday. Chair of the Digital Transformation Office of the Health Ministry, Setiaji, said user data will remain secure following the integration of PeduliLindungi features with partner applications.
>> Classifieds <<
Have you always dreamed of visiting another planet? With Mission: Mars — a virtual escape room — now is your chance! You can attempt astronaut selection process and if you’re successful, you’ll join the first manned flight to Mars! As in real life, you’ll need to prove yourself along the way, with interesting challenges and smart, creative puzzles. Mission: Mars is the perfect escape room, best played with family and friends. Get 12% off with this exclusive members-only discount.
Introducing Masterworks, a platform for investing in proven artists like Basquiat, Warhol and Banksy. Contemporary art prices outperformed the S&P 500 by 174% from 1995-2020, so it’s no surprise 84% of ultra-high-net worth individuals collect art. If you’re looking for a solid and nearly uncorrelated asset to add to your portfolio, check out Masterworks. We've partnered with Masterworks to let Petition subscribers skip their 25,000-person waitlist, so do yourself a favor and sign up today. (See important information.)
Business is tough in the best of times, but these days - Wow. Thankfully, there’s a supportive spirit among the people who remain in Bali; this newsletter is proof. If you’ve got a product or service that needs local support to succeed, let this community know about it here.
Other Headlines
“New Normal Roadmap Drafted, Herd Immunity Must Come First” from Antara: Coordinating Economic Affairs Minister Airlangga Hartarto highlighted that the Government was preparing a roadmap to a new normal era to be applied when the nation achieves herd immunity. "The main prerequisites are that herd immunity must first be achieved, vaccination must be intensified up to 2.5 million doses per day, and the number of new cases is less than five thousand," Hartarto said on Thursday. Indonesia's COVID-19 handling strategy has proven to be yielding good results, as seen in the value of the Reproduction Number (Rt) of 0.60. This figure is relatively lower than the global Rt and that of other countries.
Context: Indonesia is typically administering between 750,000 and 1,500,000 vaccine doses daily, though on some days in the last week of September over two million doses were administered. Don’t forget, you can follow Bali’s vaccination progress in the Bali Beat Sunday evening edition.
Vaccination Update
“Two-dose Covid-19 Vaccination Reaches 54.9 Million People” from Antara Bali (Indonesian): The COVID-19 Task Force noted that 54,959,545 Indonesian citizens had been vaccinated twice as of Thursday. Based on the latest data from the COVID-19 Task Force, the number of residents who had received the second vaccine dose increased by 517,566 people. Meanwhile, residents who have received the first dose of vaccine rose to 96,492,154 people, after an increase of 710,381 people. For the third dose of vaccine which is currently only given to health workers, the COVID-19 Task Force recorded an addition of 5,456 people, bringing the total health workers who have received the third dose to 980,846 people.
More...
Nation: “Indonesia Approves Covid-19 Vaccine of China's Zhifei Unit” from Reuters
Nation: “These are 10 Covid-19 Vaccines Approved For Use in Indonesia” from Kompas (Indonesian)
Nation: “Jakarta Governor Lauds Collaboration for Vaccinating Asylum Seekers” from Antara
Health Protocols (Prokes) & Health Services
“Gianyar is Ready to Welcome Tourists“ from Bali Post (Indonesian): Head of Gianyar Police, I Made Watha, on Thursday said that he is ready to welcome open borders. He said educational activities and supervision of the progress were carried out at Ubud Public Market, Sayan Traditional Village Market, and Bedulu Traditional Village Market. These three markets are part of the tourism area that is often visited by tourists who vacation in Gianyar. Made Watha explained that the joint team monitored and supervised the health care discipline for residents in the three markets. "Traders and market visitors must always obey the prokes," he said. The joint team of Satpol PP and TNI Polri saw that the people in the three markets were disciplined in obeying the prokes. Officers distributed masks to those whose masks were worn out.
More...
Nation: “Jakarta Records Zero COVID-19 Burials in 24 Hours for First Time” from Tempo
Economy & Infrastructure
“Mandalika Circuit Can Help Lombok Tourism” from Antara: The Mandalika circuit will help promote tourism sustainability in Lombok’s Mandalika Special Economic Zone and its surrounding areas, the Deputy Minister of State-Owned Enterprises said. "We hope, of course, that this is not something that is just for a moment, not just project based, not just once in a while, but we really hope that with the construction of the Mandalika international circuit, it will become an annual cycle that can be followed by various other activities," Pahala Nugraha Mansury said on Thursday. He said the targets for peak events at Mandalika are MotoGP and World Superbike, but throughout the year it is expected that other international events will also be held there.
Context: The vaccination level in Central Lombok (the regency where the Mandalika circuit is located) is currently 58% for the first dose and about 10% for the second dose. The goal is to reach a 70% vaccination rate by the time of the World Superbike event in November.
More...
Nation: “Airport Opens, Taxes Will Get a Boost” from Radar Bali (Indonesian)
Buleleng: “Realization of Hotel & Restaurant Taxes Below 50%” from Bali Express (Indonesian)
Education
“Minister Asks Bali to Accelerate PTMs” from Bali Prawara (Indonesian): Minister of Education, Culture, Research and Technology Nadiem Anwar Makarim said he felt sorry to see students, especially elementary and early childhood students, who felt that they had fallen behind in learning. "I don't want it to be permanent. I really want it to be an urgency of all government agencies,” said Minister Nadiem. He asked the Provincial Government to immediately accelerate the implementation of limited Face-to-face Learning. “I would love to see an acceleration that this limited face-to-face is happening so fast. I just came from NTB, where almost 100% of all schools have limited face-to-face meetings. That hasn't happened in Bali yet," he said on Thursday.
More...
Nation: “Critics Call on Govt to Suspend In-classroom Learning” from The Jakarta Post (Metered Paywall)
Bali Reopening
“Government Aims to Double Foreign Tourist Arrivals, Experts Wary” from The Jakarta Post (Metered Paywall): The government hopes to double foreign tourist arrivals in 2022 on the back of new travel corridors, but experts have expressed doubt, saying COVID-19's shadow still loomed over the industry. A presentation from Tourism and Creative Economy Minister Sandiaga Uno on September 27 showed that the ministry aims to welcome up to 3.6 million visitors in 2022, higher than the projected 1.5 million tourists’ arrivals for 2021. It also projected 280 million local tourist trips in 2022, inches away from the pre-pandemic level of 282.9 million trips in 2019. Indonesia Tourism Intellectuals Association chairman Azril Azahari said that while reviving local tourism would be achievable, he doubted the government could more than double the number of foreign tourist arrivals.
Context: As of the end of September 2021, Indonesia had welcomed a total of 1,061,532 foreign visitors, of whom 59.5% were from Timor Leste.
More...
Nation: “Indonesia Removes from UK Red List” from iNews
Nation: “Garuda Ready to Add Bali Flights” from Kabar Bisnis (Indonesian)
“LOVEBALI App Will Align With Bali Reopening” from Antara: The LOVEBALI app, developed by the Bali provincial government, will be updated in keeping with Bali's plan to commence international flights in mid-October, according to an official. "We have received clear-cut directions from the governor. Tourists visiting Bali must download, install, and use the LOVEBALI application," Head of Informatics Application, Communication, Informatics and Statistics Office of Bali Province, I Gusti Ngurah Puspa Udiyana, said on Thursday. LOVEBALI was developed, so that local governments could obtain tourism-related data that would be processed as a foundation in formulating policies, she said. According to Udiyana, this application has tracking features and travel history similar to PeduliLindungi.
Weekend Reads
“The ‘Energy Patriots’ Bringing Electricity to Indonesia’s Remote Villages” from UN News
“Indonesia Still Hasn’t Escaped Suharto’s Genocidal Legacy” from Jacobin
“How Does Jokowi See Indonesia in a Post-Pandemic World?” from The Diplomat
“Indonesian Activists Build Museum Out of 10,000 Items of Plastic Waste” from The Washington Post (Metered Paywall)
>> This Week’s Sponsor <<
Let Urban Compost Bali help you do your bit to get Bali’s landfill under control. See your organic waste transformed into goodness for your garden. Service starts from IDR 50k/month with weekly pickup services across much of South Bali.
Of Interest
“Four-meter Python in Chicken Cage Stirs Jembrana Residents” from Suara Bali (Indonesian)
“Bali Cultural Heritage Team Visits Mother Bung Karno's House” from Bali Express (Indonesian)
“A History of Karangasem’s Founding” from IDN Times Bali (Indonesian)
“Semarapura Art Market Will Be Revitalised“ from Bali Post (Indonesian)
“Indonesia's Race to Preserve Javan Gibbon Habitat” from Reuters
How You Can Help Bali
In response to the collapse of the tourism sector in Bali and the resulting economic crisis due to Covid19, tens of thousands of families have found themselves with a greatly reduced income—if any. By the middle of 2020, over 100,000 people on Bali had lost their job. While government support has been limited, Indonesians and foreigners have sprung into action, raising funds and distributing badly needed food and everyday essentials to those most in need.
We've been raising awareness of these efforts, and if you’d like to make a contribution of any kind, you can see a list of some organisations here. Further projects have registered themselves with Bali Solidarity. If you know of an effort and would like to have them listed, please send their information to TheBaliBeat@outlanders.global
About This Newsletter
This newsletter is a product of Outlanders.
Our standards
We only include news items from established media sources.
We do not include op-eds, forecasts, or rumors.
We do not express any opinions about any included news item.
A “Context” note, along with a reference link may be added after an excerpt to include additional information and/or links to further reading on the topic.
Any headline marked with “Indonesian” point to an article in the Indonesian language. We use Google Translate to translate headlines and excerpts into English, then correct any translation errors where the intended meaning is lost or unclear. These changes are kept to a minimum to accurately reflect the source material.
For any questions, comments or tips, please contact us at TheBaliBeat@outlanders.global.