Covid-19th deaths in Indonesia, friends or relatives

[Jaime C]

I never thought I’d start a thread like this.

My wife’s uncle in Bekasi has been sick for a week. He’s a hard working guy, working on equipment in a building or mall. Never takes any sick time except when he got in a motorbike accident 4-5 years ago. He’s in his early 60’s.

A relative took him to the hospital earlier this week. He had a cough, and fever, I think. They gave him a Covid-19 test, and sent him home to self quarantine. Nothing else.

He died tonight. No test results yet, but the symptoms certainly seem to match for Covid-19. If this is the normal treatment method for Indonesia, I’d say things will get quite bad here, before they recover. Spreading the disease through caretakers and relatives is going to make is expand like you see in Italy, US, etc.

I’ll post more details as I get them.

 

[dafluff]

I never thought I’d start a thread like this.

My wife’s uncle in Bekasi has been sick for a week. He’s a hard working guy, working on equipment in a building or mall. Never takes any sick time except when he got in a motorbike accident 4-5 years ago. He’s in his early 60’s.

A relative took him to the hospital earlier this week. He had a cough, and fever, I think. They gave him a Covid-19 test, and sent him home to self quarantine. Nothing else.

He died tonight. No test results yet, but the symptoms certainly seem to match for Covid-19. If this is the normal treatment method for Indonesia, I’d say things will get quite bad here, before they recover. Spreading the disease through caretakers and relatives is going to make is expand like you see in Italy, US, etc.

I’ll post more details as I get them.

This will repeat thousands+ of times in Indonesia. There is no doubt in my mind. For the foreseeable future just assume that you live in a country with 19th century healthcare.

 

[nd_eric_77]

I never thought I’d start a thread like this.

My wife’s uncle in Bekasi has been sick for a week. He’s a hard working guy, working on equipment in a building or mall. Never takes any sick time except when he got in a motorbike accident 4-5 years ago. He’s in his early 60’s.

A relative took him to the hospital earlier this week. He had a cough, and fever, I think. They gave him a Covid-19 test, and sent him home to self quarantine. Nothing else.

He died tonight. No test results yet, but the symptoms certainly seem to match for Covid-19. If this is the normal treatment method for Indonesia, I’d say things will get quite bad here, before they recover. Spreading the disease through caretakers and relatives is going to make is expand like you see in Italy, US, etc.

I’ll post more details as I get them.

Condolences for you, your wife, and her family.
I do not have any friends or acquaintances who have died of COVID yet. My friend / former coworker who tested positive has recovered. I still cannot figure out how he got infected but would guess maybe through church activities.

 

[ChrisTex]

My wife and I have a friend whose father in law recently died and her mother in law is in the hospital, both due the the virus.

Have a friend in England who lost his uncle.

 

[IndoTom]

If a tree falls down in a forest and nobody is there. Does it make a noise? I think they have done all they can reasonably do and further acurate death toll reports won't do anything except create panic.

 

[Jaime C]

I think the truth will help track infections. I know when driving to Bandung today, I saw lots of construction crews working on the roads, plus the elevated rail. Lots of people hanging out in Jakarta.

I don’t think enough people are taking it seriously.

 

[IndoTom]

I think the truth will help track infections. I know when driving to Bandung today, I saw lots of construction crews working on the roads, plus the elevated rail. Lots of people hanging out in Jakarta.

I don’t think enough people are taking it seriously.

Everyone wears a mask now like it's the new trendy fashion. It's very funny how easy it was to get everyone to wear a muslim niqab.

 

[Henk Madrotter]

Dutch embassy was sending e mails to all the Dutch people in Indonesia they could find, telling them to get the hell out of Indonesia, they felt like it was going to get really, really bad here. A few days ago there was one last KLM flight flying out of Bali and they still had a few seats left... Yeah, but without my Indonesian wife and my kids I'm not going anywhere, I think we're all in for quiet a ride.... Most of us will come out ok I think, but not without being touched by this in some way....

 

[fastpitch17]

Everyone wears a mask now like it's the new trendy fashion. It's very funny how easy it was to get everyone to wear a muslim niqab.

Lots of people here in Bandar Lampung wearing mask now. Unfortunantly, most are around their necks and not pulled up to cover their face.

 

[Jaime C]

The uncle was tested at the hospital after he died for Covid-19, and the results were negative.

Supposedly the local Bekasi police even brought in another relative who was saying he died of Covid-19, for “official” questioning.

They buried him the next day, and nobody was allowed to get close to the burial site.

 

[Puspawarna]

further acurate death toll reports won't do anything except create panic.

That is a dangerously misinformed attitude worthy of Donald Trump himself, who now claims that he knew all along that things were going to get bad, but he downplayed the severity of the situation because he didn't want Americans to panic.

Accurate information, on a worldwide basis, will help epidemiologists learn more about the rate at which the virus spreads, the mortality rate, which populations are most vulnerable, and more. This is not the time to turn one's back on science. An intelligent, fact-based response is our only hope.

Moreover, the sad reality is that there is nothing "special" about this pandemic. Anyone who was even semi-aware and scientifically literate has been assuming that something like this was quite likely to happen. Just because COVID 19 is our current problem doesn't mean that in a few months or years something else won't strike. The more we work to understand social dynamics, health care system responses, and everything else related to both the medical and social aspects of the virus, the better equipped we'll be to cope the next time something like this happens.

 

[Nimbus]

If a tree falls down in a forest and nobody is there. Does it make a noise? I think they have done all they can reasonably do and further acurate death toll reports won't do anything except create panic.

If you know anything about Indonesians, you’d know that lots of us are fatalists. Even in the face of a global pandemic that has killed 75K people worldwide, plenty still has the attitude that “nothing will happen to me, God willing.”

Accurate, scary numbers are necessary to get through some extra thick skulls.

 

[fastpitch17]

Reported today that Peter Navarro, trump's economist had written a memo in January saying that a pandemic is highly possible and could cause millions of deaths and trillions of dollars. Evidently, trump chose to ignore it as well as his national security briefing that explained it. He instead held 8 political rallies and played 6 rounds of golf. Evidently, coronavirus just wasn't important.

 

[fastpitch17]

As for Indonesia's president, he stated he was not releasing all information because he did not want people to panic. Does not that statement in and of itself say their is reason to panic. I think so.

 

[Puspawarna]

Accurate, scary numbers are necessary to get through some extra thick skulls.

I started to "agree" with this post but settled for "like" instead since, as a non-Indonesian, I don't want to characterize Indonesians as a group as having "extra thick skulls." Nimbus can say that, since he himself is Indonesian.

In fact, I don't doubt that there is a particular mix of inadequate education, misinformation, and cultural tendencies that lead some Indonesian communities to have a high rate of head-in-the-sand or other counter-productive behaviors. But that's just human nature being manifested in a specific set of circumstances. We're all just primates, only some of us are the product of more advantageous circumstances than others.

 

[R Cameron]

It is widely reported that Indonesia has very few hospital and ICU beds (per capita), which makes me wonder, does the "flatten the curve" approach even work in Indonesia where the medical system will be overwhelmed by even a mild increase?

 

[centurion]

If the hot and humid climate does not help, the only flattening will happen on the graveyard.

 

[Nimbus]

I started to "agree" with this post but settled for "like" instead since, as a non-Indonesian, I don't want to characterize Indonesians as a group as having "extra thick skulls." Nimbus can say that, since he himself is Indonesian.

In fact, I don't doubt that there is a particular mix of inadequate education, misinformation, and cultural tendencies that lead some Indonesian communities to have a high rate of head-in-the-sand or other counter-productive behaviors. But that's just human nature being manifested in a specific set of circumstances. We're all just primates, only some of us are the product of more advantageous circumstances than others.

To be fair, I qualify my statement with “a lot”. Many of my compatriots often surprise me with their good grasp of logic and common sense, despite low quality of information they have around and their limited access to scientific journals in English.

Still, dimwits and fundamentalists are never in short supply in Indonesia. If they don’t see headlines like “1,000 people have died in Indonesia”, they’d still think it’s business as usual.

I have complained in the past about my cousins. One turned to religion and constantly proselytize after he essentially wasted his youth doing nothing, the other can’t find a hoax / conspiracy / snake oil that he doesn’t like. I’ve had to correct them in our WA group chat several times. The next family reunion will be interesting.

 

[jukung11]

In fact, I don't doubt that there is a particular mix of inadequate education, misinformation, and cultural tendencies that lead some Indonesian communities to have a high rate of head-in-the-sand or other counter-productive behaviors.

One particular that I have identified is the social cultural phenomenon of social media. Indonesia has one of the highest daily uses of it in the world. (2-3 times more than western countries) With the unverifiable claims and unmonitored communications on the newest facebook app, whatsapp, bad information that appeals to prejudices spreads like wildfire.


The poor government transparency and poor independent news resources are partly to blame.

 

[dafluff]

It is widely reported that Indonesia has very few hospital and ICU beds (per capita), which makes me wonder, does the "flatten the curve" approach even work in Indonesia where the medical system will be overwhelmed by even a mild increase?

I think Indonesia is past the point for flattening the curve to fit in the health care capacity anyway. But even then, there are some benefits to flattening the curve.

1. Reduce number of simultaneous cases to make area isolation and tracing purposes more effective.
2. Delay getting sick. If you were to get Covid-19, you would rather have it 6 months from now than today.
3. Reduce transmission rates if possible to below 1, so that the virus dies out in the wild. Then any recurring local outbreaks must be quickly isolated.