Ahead of several national holidays in a few days, the national COVID-19 task force has warned the public that long weekends could lead to a spike in the cumulative number of daily and weekly coronavirus infections by up to 118 percent.
“Long holidays have been proven to have the effect of increasing the number of positive cases nationwide,” task force spokesperson Wiku Adisasmito said on Tuesday, Oct 28, 2020.
Wiku said as an example :
- The Idul Fitri holiday from May 22 to 25, the cumulative number of daily and weekly coronavirus cases increased 69 to 93 percent over regular infection rates.
- The series of long weekends in May and August also resulted in the increase of the positivity rate at 3.9 percent nationwide.
As information, the government has declared Oct. 28 and Oct. 30 collective leave days.
Sandwiched between those dates is Prophet Muhammad’s Birthday on Oct. 29, another public holiday.
And Wiku also reminded the public to refrain from visiting tourist destinations during the long stretch of holidays and urged the public to refrain from nonessential travel outside their hometowns.
