Indonesia eyes return to normal life in July

Bloomberg

Indonesians can expect to resume their normal life in July, with a ramp-up in testing and isolation of those affected expected to help the nation contain the pandemic, a senior official said.
Health officials will continue the massive nationwide virus testing this month and next, followed by aggressive contact tracing and isolation of people exposed to those infected, Doni Manardo, chief of the nation’s Covid-19 task force, told on online briefing after a cabinet meeting. The government expects new confirmed cases to decline from June “so that in July we can start normal life again,” he said.
Indonesia is expanding a partial lockdown to more regions after initially failing to stem the spread of the pandemic with voluntary social distancing measures. The country has the highest fatalities from the outbreak in Asia after China and India, and reported 22 more deaths in the past 24 hours, taking the total to 765. The number of confirmed cases rose 214 to 9,096 on April 27, the Health Ministry said.
The number of new infections and deaths showed a declining trend over the past week in capital Jakarta, the epicenter of the nation’s outbreak, said Wiku Adisasmito, head of the expert team at Indonesia’s Covid-19 Task Force. The government is also planning to repatriate Indonesian citizens stranded in the US, Japan, South Korea and Middle East, he said.