September 8, 2021
Bali August Covid fatalities: 90% unvaccinated + Some Regency testing targets slide + Indonesians‘ data just sitting there + more
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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: The provincial government did not release its infographic by press time.
The Big News
“Bali August Covid Fatalities: 90% Unvaccinated” from Tribun Bali (Indonesian): In August there were 752 Covid-19 patients who died in Bali. The Head of the Bali Health Office, dr. Ketut Suarjaya said there were several causes of death of Covid-19 patients in Bali. Some patients arrived at hospital already in a critical or severe condition, most of the patients were over 60 years old, 62% have congenital diseases and 90% were unvaccinated. From March 2020 to September 5, 2021, a total of 3,616 Covid-19 patients in Bali have died. Of the 3,616 patients, 0.61% or about 22 people were aged 0-5 years and 0.58% or about 20 patients were aged 6-18 years. A total of 18.42% or about 666 patients were aged 19-50 years, 22.43% or about 811 patients were aged 51-60 years and 58.01% or around 2,097 patients were aged over 60 years old.
“Some Regency Testing Targets Revised Down” from Bali Post: Bali has experienced a reduction in the number of people being tested daily as the positivity rate drops. The previous week 5,378 people per day were tested, compared to 3,956 people this week. When Inmendagri No. 39 and No. 38 are compared, there is a decrease in testing targets in four districts. They are Buleleng from 956 to 478 people, Klungkung from 258 to 129 people, Denpasar from 1,425 to 712 people, and Jembrana from 604 to 201 people. On Monday Deputy Minister of Health, Dante Saksono Harbuwono said increasing the ratio of closely tracked contacts is one of the strategies for handling COVID-19. He said the national positivity rate is decreasing, which is 6.97%, close to the WHO recommendation of 5%. "Therefore, tracing must be improved," he said. For Bali, the positivity rate remains quite high at 9.18%. However, it has decreased significantly from last week when it reached 21.86%.
“Indonesians’ Data Just Sitting There” from The Jakarta Post (Metered Paywall): “Nothing is ever 100% secure,” said Anton Muhajir, a digital security trainer at Safenet. “Things change, hackers get smarter. The question is, have we prepared a sensible amount of security in the first place?” The answer, for Anton and other digital security experts, is a resounding “no”. According to hacker and digital security expert Teguh Aprianto, vpnMentor was able to access e-HAC’s data through popular search engine Elasticsearch. “The database of e-HAC was stored there, and the public could access it freely. This is ridiculous,” Teguh said. On good days, these leaks are caught by good Samaritans. On most days though, these breaches will lead to a murky world of underground marketplaces, extortion and crime.
Context: The Indonesian National Police announced an investigation into the leak was underway on Monday, which contradicted earlier statements by the government who said there had been no leak. The police subsequently announced (also on Monday) that their investigation had closed, and that there was no leak.
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Other Headlines
“Indonesia Pushes Vaccination Drive Further” from Antara: The Health Ministry has highlighted the positive trend in efforts to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic, as evidenced by a decline in the case count. The number of confirmed cases have declined up to 25%, the mortality rate has gone down by 37%, and the positivity rate has decreased by 10.36%, while the recovery rate has continued to increase, it said. "The key to successful handling of COVID-19 is strongly influenced by several factors, including the vaccination program, which plays a vital and very important role," Vice President Ma’ruf Amin said on Tuesday. Despite geographical constraints, the government is targeting to vaccinate 208 million people, or 77% of the total population, against COVID-19 before the end of this year, said Amin.
Vaccination Update
“Bali Speeds Up Vaccinations Despite Achievements of 107%” from Republika (Indonesian): Deputy Governor of Bali Tjokorda Oka Artha Ardhana Sukawati said the provincial government was speeding up the Covid-19 vaccination, even though the first stage had reached 107%. The Bali Provincial Government continues to boost vaccination with a target of 40-50,000 injections per day. "Bali is recorded to have achieved a very high vaccination rate compared to other provinces in Indonesia," said the Deputy Governor of Bali on Tuesday. According to the Deputy Governor, of the target of 70% of Bali's population who must be vaccinated or around 2,996,060 people, out of a total of 4.2 million Balinese residents, the population who have been vaccinated in the first phase has reached more than 3.2 million people.
Context: You can follow Bali’s vaccination progress in Bali Beat’s Sunday newsletter, which includes charts tracing vaccination progress across the island.
More...
Nation: “President Aims to Realize Vaccination Goal by Year End” from Antara
Province: “200,000 non-Balinese Indonesians Vaccinated in Bali” from Bali Prawara (Indonesian)
Health Protocols (Prokes) & Health Services
“Indonesia Doing Better Than Neighbours, PeduliLindungi Finds Unknown Cases” from Antara: Indonesia's COVID-19 condition is better than its neighboring countries, according to Vice Health Minister Dante Saksono Harbuwono. "At the moment, escalation is still occurring in neighboring countries, such as Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. However, here, it has started to settle down for us," Harbuwono said on Monday. "We already have the PeduliLindungi application. With this, citizens can be monitored and then have their mobilization status mitigated and evaluated," Harbuwono said. He outlined four criteria, specifically green, yellow, red, and black. The black criteria applies to those having positive cases and positive close contact. Harbuwono said the PeduliLindungi application had identified 1,625 cases that fell into the black criteria. "The 1,625 cases are those that did not earlier know or were earlier unaware of being infected with COVID-19 or having come in close contact, but they still roamed the streets," he said.
Context: Harbuwono’s statement regarding the Covid situation in some of Indonesia’s neighbours, on both a total numbers and per-capita basis, is correct. It represents a dramatic turnaround in Indonesia’s situation from just two months ago. You can see the change in fortunes for these four countries on Our World In Data here. Indonesia’s daily number of total deaths though, remains the highest of the four countries mentioned.
More...
Nation: “No Mu in Indonesia, Yet” from Tempo
Nation: “Potential and Challenges of Telemedicine” from The Jakarta Post (Metered Paywall)
Nation: “Nation Records Lowest Rate of Positive Covid Results” from The Jakarta Post (Metered Paywall)
Nation: “Govt Lauds Religious Groups for Role in Covid-19 Handling” from Antara
Province: “Positive Cases With Symptoms Must Go to Hospital” from Antara Bali (Indonesian)
Denpasar: “A Year of Mask Inspection, There Are Still Violators” from Nusa Bali (Indonesian)
Economy & Infrastructure
“Bali Asks Central Govt to Release Loans of Rp9.4 Trillion” from Antara Bali (Indonesian): The Bali Provincial Government hopes that the central government will immediately release a soft loan of IDR 9.4 trillion which was previously promised to help tourism and creative economy actors on Bali through the pandemic. "Until now, what we have heard is still in process. Hopefully it will be released soon," said Deputy Governor of Bali Tjokorda Oka Artha Ardhana Sukawati on Tuesday. Previously, the Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy Sandiaga Salahuddin Uno said he was trying to get Bali to get soft loans worth IDR 9.4 trillion through placing state money in banks.
More...
Nation: “Digital Literacy Drives Productivity in Digital Economy” from Antara
Province: “Bali Govt Allows Tourist Sites to Open at 50%” from Tribun Bali (Indonesian)
Bali Reopening
“Bali to Adopt Phuket Sandbox Scheme for Reopening” from Tempo: Tourism and Creative Economy Minister Sandiaga Uno said the government continues preparations for the reopening of Bali tourism although PPKM Level 4 is still in place. The tourism reopening will adopt the Phuket Sandbox plan initiated by the Thai government. “Learning from the Phuket Sandbox which focuses on significantly curbing local transmission in Phuket can be later applied in Bali,” said Sandiaga on Tuesday. Sandiaga said the government has not yet decided when Bali tourism will be reopened.
“Govt Prepares Comprehensive Plan for Endemic Covid-19” from Antara: Vice President Ma'ruf Amin spoke of the government readying a detailed scenario for handling COVID-19 that is expected to become endemic in the country. "The government is preparing the outline in a more comprehensive way to deal with the endemic period," Amin said on Tuesday. According to the vice president, the government has forecast COVID-19 to linger on unless effective medicine against the virus was discovered. The provision of additional doses of COVID-19 vaccines and boosters is one of the strategies undertaken by the government to reduce the pace of the virus and move to the endemic phase, he stated.
Of Interest
“Tracing Eastern Indonesian Spice Routes” from Antara
“NTT Police Reprimand Task Force, Semau Festival Canceled” from Bali Express (Indonesian)
“Agoda Survey Reveals Indonesian Pandemic Tourism Trends” from Nusa Bali (Indonesian)
“January Death of Mozaic Manager Results in Rp 1.034 Billion Payment” from Nusa Bali (Indonesian)
“Uluwatu’s Naughty Monkeys are Also Hungry, Nosy” from Nusa Bali (Indonesian)
“From Pushcarts to Online Marketplace: the Sambal Raja Roa Story” from The Jakarta Post (Metered Paywall)
How You Can Help
In response to the collapse of the tourism sector in Bali and the resulting economic crisis, dozens of individuals and organizations have sprung into action, raising funds and distributing badly needed food and everyday essentials to the innumerable families who have suddenly found themselves without any source of income. We've been making an effort to document and raise awareness of these efforts. We will add information on projects in this space as we are able to confirm them. If you'd like to see a list of the efforts that we've featured so far and contribute to them with either time or money, visit our complete list here. You can also see a list of projects that 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.
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