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Bloomberg
Indonesian President Joko Widodo ruled out an immediate easing of social distancing rules and ordered officials to strictly enforce a ban on travel during the busy holiday season to prevent a spike in new coronavirus cases.
With new infections soaring 80% so far in May, Jokowi, as the president is known, asked officials at a cabinet meeting to increase the surveillance of industrial clusters and focus on enforcing mobility restrictions at the village level.
While the government is preparing various scenarios for reopening the economy, no deadline has been set yet, he said.
The spike in infections in recent weeks may delay plans to reopen Southeast Asia’s largest economy as early as next month as an overwhelmed healthcare system fails to ramp up testing of those with even explicit Covid-19 symptoms. With reports of a large number of people traveling to their hometowns to celebrate the Muslim festival of Eid al-Fitr later this month in defiance of the ban on such travel, known as mudik, fears have increased of a fresh wave of infections.