Jakarta (ANTARA) - The Metropolitan Police of Jakarta readied 3,987 personnel in the early stages of preparations to implement health protocols in the capital city and the surrounding areas that are ushering in a new normal amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
"In the first stage, 3,987 police personnel have been readied and military personnel will follow later," Chief of the Public Relations Section of the Jakarta Metropolitan Police Senior Commissioner Yusri Yunus stated in Jakarta on Wednesday.
The number of personnel can be increased in line with the Jakarta provincial government's policy and will be adjusted to the number of public places that the provincial government will open soon, he revealed.
"The figure is still tentative. We do not know yet how many and which public places will be opened. We are still awaiting an instruction from the Jakarta governor as chief of the task force," he noted.
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President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) has given instructions to deploy 340 thousand military and police personnel at 1,800 locations in four provinces and 25 districts and cities to ensure public adherence to the new normal protocols.
The head of state expressed hope that the deployment of military and police personnel would make the public disciplined to comply with the large-scale social restriction rules to slow down the COVID-19 infection rate to flatten the curve.
Regions can start applying the new normal protocols if the Basic Reproduction Number (R0), an epidemiologic metric used to describe the contagiousness or transmissibility of COVID-19, is below one.
Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartanto stated on Wednesday that according to the indicators, the new normal protocols can be applied in at least seven Indonesian provinces.
The indicators are based on epidemiological parameters that show the growth of coronavirus transmission, or R0, which has registered a low value in several areas.
"According to data from Bappenas (the National Development Planning Agency), several areas -- Aceh, Riau, North Kalimantan, Maluku, Jambi, and Jakarta -- will be ready on June 4, 2020, while West Java as well as some other provinces are enacting social restrictions until May 29, 2020,” Hartanto remarked after a limited meeting with President Jokowi.
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