Sky1981
Fending off the urge
Jokowi, in my own opinion faces a very daunting task.These are probably some of the reasons why the government of my country, Indonesia, in the last minute decided to go against a lockdown and opted for a large-scale enforced social distancing in so-called 'danger zones' such as Jakarta instead. People living in poverty, to which there are millions here, are stressed enough without these countermeasures let alone a full lockdown. Here, offices but a few exceptions for several key sectors, factories, retail stores and shopping malls are closed; social, cultural and religious events are banned; restaurants and street hawkers (a major source of livelihood for many) are takeaway only; banks, supermarkets, most informal markets (another very large source of livelihood for many) and corner shops are open with social distancing protocols in place. Intra-province public transport is open whilst inter-province travel is banned for everyone unless for extraordinary circumstances and this requires a special permit. Those measures have fortunately slowed down the growth of corona cases and deaths in Jakarta, although testing hasn't been up to par.
I just don't think there's a one-size-fits-all solution in slowing down the spread of virus. Lockdowns in general help, of course, but it's not the be all and all. Take Jakarta. You have hundreds of thousands, most likely even millions, of people here living in squalid conditions in our shantytowns. Folks there earn their meagre wages daily, a twenty square meter room is often shared with five to six people and toilets are public. How are you going to impose a lockdown for an extended period of time when taking such circumstances into account? Without sacrificing people's livelihoods and probably even lives, you can't, because the government of a developing economy like Indonesia just don't have enough money to support the livelihoods of millions for an extended period of time. This is why I've always been sceptical when governments (especially of developing countries) shout lockdown left and right without considering its long-term implications.
As difficult to implement as it may be, I'm proponent of a more balanced approach for this reason: a 'soft' lockdown and coupled with an overzealous test, track and isolate regime, but then again different countries are different! In Indonesia's case -- despite the fact that our government, in my opinion, has done the right thing by opting against a full lockdown -- needs to do a lot more in the testing, tracking and isolating front.
I wonder what @Sky1981 has to say about this.
I see several problems with lock down:
1. If it's a lockdown, you need punishment or some sort of deterrent along with it. We don't and can't spare the valuable manpower.
2. Jokowi probably sees that the majority of Indonesians actually quite obedient (knowing us very well, I'd say this time we're quite obedient) and he can choose not to enforce the lockdown.
3. If it's a total lock down then the government has to provide food, most Indonesians lives on day to day paycheck, you can't force hungry people to stay at home. The logistic of providing foods is impossible for Indonesia, Jakarta alone has 12 million citizens, the government has no data on the who and where, it's a nightmare.
4. We don't know about behind the screen politics, there are possibility of big corruption with locals and centrals discrepancy on policy on emergency funding. There are also potential imbalance when province A and Province B can't cooperate. I also think that there are parties that wants to use this to incite chaos and champions their own agenda. We don't know whether Jokowi as full support internally to take measures, there could be lobbying inside we're privy to.
5. PSBB sounds better, and there are loopholes on both sides. Enough for it to be practical, and enough for it to scare the masses to cooperate.
6. I'm also guessing lockdowns has it's own legal ramifications. I'm not a lawyer, but I think the wording matters on what constitute as force majeure. If you're forced by the official to close your business, then your contracts would probably can be voided without penalty. Many business would need the proper wording.
7. And there's masses who's scared of virus, but dont want to stop their business because their neighbor hasn't. My friend who opens stores says it's better for it to be official, at least I don't have to worry about losing my customer he says.
And yes, I agree you can't lock down for long, 1-2 months is the max max max you can survive, anything longer than that would be chaos and riots because as real as this virus is, you can only survive 3 days without food. I don't even think I can survive beyond 3 months without defaulting my mortgage etc. Even if physical survival is possible, the financial damages of having no income for 3 months is long lasting.