Indonesia dissuades Ramadan gathering over Covid-19 cases

Bloomberg

Indonesians have been asked to cancel various gatherings that have been a common tradition during the Ramadan festive season as the number of daily coronavirus cases spiked by the most since the country reported its first case.
The world’s fourth most populous nation reported 407 new infections on April 17, taking the total confirmed case count close to 6,000, according to Achmad Yurianto, spokesman for the government task force.
The number of deaths rose to 520, the most in Asia after China.
The Religious Affairs Ministry has asked people to conduct the additional prayer during the holy month in the evening at home rather than gathering at mosques, and to skip the breaking-the-fast gathering, which was common in workplaces or among friends and extended families.
“We understand how great it is to pray at mosque, but at this time it is important for us to pray at home,” said Kamaruddin Amin, director general for Muslim community guidance at the Religious Affairs Ministry. “We advised that people not holding fast-breaking together at private offices, government offices, families, nor conducting night praying at mosque.”
The government has continuously expanded a partial lockdown to more cities outside the capital Jakarta, the epicenter of the outbreak, to contain the spread of the deadly disease. The virus is expected to infect 95,000 people at its peak in May and to rise to 106,000 in July,
according to the government estimates. Officials also have discouraged people from traveling to their hometown during the holiday as they try to avoid the spread of the virus into rural areas, where medical facilities are less likely to be as well-equipped as those in the urban centres.