I returned to the Indonesian island of Lombok at the beginning of April, 2020, around the time that the coronavirus pandemic had put most of the world’s developed nations into hard lockdown.
In my home country, Australia, Covid is threatening to overwhelm the economy, the health care system and indeed, the whole way of life that we have long taken for granted.
And yet here I am living in Indonesia, a developing nation with more than 270,000,000 million people that is far less well-equipped than Australia to provide either the infrastructure or the resources to its front line workers let alone the population at large, to adequately suppress the transmission of this highly infectious virus.
The approach of the two countries and their respective governments to handling the epidemic have been worlds apart. But I have to say that I feel safe living in Indonesia right now, safer than I possibly would be living in my home town of Melbourne.
I was in Australia at the start of March as the threat of a global pandemic became a chilling reality and, while the drama unfolded via increasingly frequent tv news updates, I was both impressed and relieved by the confident and assertive response of Federal and State governments, backed by their Chief Medical Officers, clearly articulating the dangers we faced and the steps that we all needed to take to avoid a wholesale catastrophe.
The government in Indonesia, by comparison was slow to acknowledge the risk that Covd-19 presented and downplayed the spread of the virus through the capital, Jakarta, for several weeks so as not to send the population into a panic.
They did, however, take the fortuitous step of banning all flights from China into the tourist island of Bali on Feb 1, well before most governments in the developed world had thought to take any such action and I believe this single act significantly reduced the initial spread of the virus throughout the island nation.
My first and only personal encounter with the coronavirus also took place in Australia, the day before I was due to fly back to my wife in Lombok.
I’d been for lunch over the weekend with my two sons (from my first marriage) and my mum. The following day I received a call from my eldest son to say that he’d attended a movie screening a couple of days prior to our lunch and had just been contacted by the organisers of the screening and was told that one of the attendees had just tested positive to the coronavirus.
While he didn’t know the person involved there was every chance that my son too could now be infected.
This presented me with a double dilemna. Firstly, I was supposed to be flying back to Indonesia the following day. Was I going to be carrying the virus back to my family and friends there?
Perhaps more worrying though, was the fact that, whilst in Australia, I was staying with my mum in an independent living apartment that was attached to a nursing home.
The local GP informed us that we wouldn’t be tested until such time as we presented with symptoms but her subsequent advice left no room for ambiguity.
I called my wife, postponed my flight and began two weeks self isolating with my 85 year old mother.
It was an anxious time to say the least but happily, nether my mum, my son, myself, nor anyone in the nursing home contracted the virus from that incident.
Upon my return to Indonesia, I was more than a little disappointed to be told by my wife that, even with a medical certificate confirming my self isolation in Australia, I was going to be required to self isolate for another two weeks.
This directive was issued not by the government in Jakarta but by local authorities.
As Indonesia is made up of hundreds of islands, every jurisdiction enjoys a degree of autonomy in making decisions that reflect the needs of their individual communities.
So while a second stretch of isolation was not exactly my idea of paradise, it was certainly some consolation to know that authorities here were taking the threat of coronavirus seriously.
In the intervening months both Indonesia and Australia’s fortunes have changed rapidly.
Authorities in Australia were quick to act and we were one of the most successful countries in world at effectively flattening the curve.
In recent weeks however, community transmission has increased significantly and in some states, is threatening to upend that early success.
In Indonesia, the number of cases has steadily increased although the true number of cases may never be known due to an initial undersupply of testing kits.
And, while this situation has improved in recent months, testing rates of around 10,000 cases a day are still well below that of most countries in the developed world.
Although the virus has spread to all parts of the country, the problems have been most pronounced on the island of Java.
With a population of 140 million people living on an island roughly the size of the Australian state of Victoria, (or the country of England) it is one of the most densely populated places on the planet.
The greater metropolitan area of Jakarta alone, is home to 28 million people, more than the entire Australian population.
Even in a country whose citizens overwhelmingly respect authority and the rule of law, the congestion in the larger cities and an often inadequate standard of housing makes physical distancing and stay at home orders difficult to achieve and even harder to enforce.
But while most of the reporting of Indonesia’s battle with the virus has focused on the lack of testing and mixed messaging from the government, little attention has been given to the many things the island nation has tried to do and in many instances, does do very well.
By my observation, the problem is not so much in the government’s messaging as it is in the difficulty of engaging all the members of society in a country as diverse, both geographicaly and demographically, as Indonesia.
It’s a problem that governments in Australia, now confronted by a jaded and sometimes untrusting public are also beginning to face.
The spokesman for Indonesia’s Novel Coronavirus Taskforce, Achmad Yurianto, speaks to the media daily in clear, concise and measured tones. His messaging is always on point.
News bulletins bring updates of the virus and the governments efforts to combat it from around the country into the homes of even the poorest and most remote members of the community.
All the major TV networks have produced simple, easy to understand community service announcements which underline the government’s message. TV personalities are regularly seen both on screen and in public wearing face masks or face shields.
When most of the nation’s major retailers, department stores and shopping centres closed down in April, large supermarkets were allowed to remain open but temperature checks and the wearing of face masks became standard conditions of entry.
During the month of Ramadan, in early May the government banned all travel into and out of Jakarta and shut down domestic travel between the islands that make up the archipelago.
While most of those who wanted to be with family during the holy month had enough time to make arrangements, the forced lockdown acted to relieve some of the pressure on Jakarta, then the epicentre of the outbreak and allow the whole country to self isolate while spreading the health care burden across the island chain.
Since the end of Ramadan in early June, the city of Jakarta has remained closed to all but essential workers and of those, restricted only to individuals who can provide evidence a negative test result.
The major effect of this month-long shut down has been a shift in the outbreak’s epicentre from Jakarta to the West Javanese port city of Surabaya.
Here, as in the capital, cramped and congested living conditions make this a difficult place to effectively manage a highly infectious disease but all levels of government have been working to provide appropriate facilities and resources.
Outside of Java, many areas are beginning to report zero or near zero new cases, the major exception being the tourist island of Bali which, after months of low case numbers, (whether real or fanciful), is just now starting to report that hospitals are close to capacity.
With domestic borders now beginning to reopen and the island hoping to open to international tourists again in September, authorities there are definitely going to have their work cut out to getting the infection count down.
So, am I crazy to stay here in this chaotic place that is barely equipped to cope with a pandemic which seemingly, has not yet peaked and the scale of which has never before been seen on the planet?
The simple answer is, yes, maybe I am crazy. But I think I am as safe, if not safer, here than anywhere, including Australia.
With a population of 3.75 million people and attracting only a fraction of the tourist trade of neighbouring Bali had at the start of the pandemic, the island of Lombok has not been immune to the epidemic but appears to have been spared the worst.
As well as requiring me to self isolate for two weeks on arrival, authorities here were quick to spread the physical distancing and personal hygiene message.
And people here have been prepared to listen.
A German student I met here before the epidemic, who has been undertaking a research project for the past five months on the Gili Islands (a group of three small islands, popular with tourists, located between Bali and Lombok) told me recently there are presently no active cases on the islands.
Similarly, In the tourist area of Senggiggi, workers at a once popular cafe say that the virus has now gone. But it may be some time yet before tourists return.
In many parts of the capital city, Mataram, entire neighbourhoods have independently imposed strict controls over who is allowed to enter their precinct and for what reasons residents are allowed to leave.
Here, as in the rest of Indonesia, the use of masks has been almost universally adopted, ever since the first cases were reported.
Rapid testing is now widely available for around $AUD15 per test and the results are normally available within hours.
As supermarkets, shopping centres and department stores have come out of lockdown across the country, hand wash and hand sanitising stations have been set up outside entrances. Temperature checks and face masks are still a standard condition of entry.
Before I left Australia back in March, I stopped to pick up a few things at one of the major supermarket chains.
After I left I felt distinctly uneasy.
Fresh out of two weeks isolation, had I thought to wear a mask?
No.
And how many people had used that handbasket before me?
How many people before me had handled the goods I just purchased?
I felt compromised. I went in unprepared and did not take proper precautions.
Although I did not contract the virus from that incident I think the psychological reassurance, if nothing else, of hand wash stations, temperature checks and face masks is well worth consideration.
I also think that these measures should have been put in place in Australia months ago.
Its now nearly four months since I came out of my second stretch of isolation. I’m living on a large property with my wife, our kids and of couple of members of my wife’s extended family.
I have been off the property four times in as many months.
My wife and her aunts clean the house from top to bottom every day.
Anything that arrives from the outside world gets treated in a disinfecting area before being unpacked.
If anybody leaves the house, they shower and change into fresh clothes upon return.
My wife’s family report no known cases of infection amongst their circle of friends.
They take good precautions.
I feel safe.
And herein perhaps lies the solution –
The best efforts of governments and the best advice health care professionals count for nothing if, as individuals and communities, we aren’t prepared to take necessary and proper precautions.
This fact has been clearly underlined by the drama currently playing out in my home town, Melbourne, which is now in the midst of its second hard lockdown in four months.
The impact of this pandemic is going to be unimaginable if we don’t get it somehow under control, both in terms of the economic impact and the effect it’s already starting to have on our psyche.
If nothing else, this pandemic has shown us that we are all connected. And we are going to need to think and act as a single organism in order to defeat it.
And to once again feel safe.
Am I crazy to stay here in Indonesia? If you believe the news reports then, maybe I am.
But if it boils down to a choice between staying where I am and having to enter the poorly conceived and poorly managed quarantine system in my own home town, I’ll take my chances in Indonesia, thanks.