I am definitively shocked (and I dont use this word lightly) by some approaches regarding maids and staffs.
I am definitively surprised to see people saying they stock for 3 or 6 months, which IMHO opinion is simply ridiculous.
Most of what I have read here is simply adding to the panic and paranoia.
Of course, I dont have 20y experience in Indo, but more than 30 in SEA and seen some situations.
Living in Sanur, nothing changed till yesterday. In a remote village in East Java, south of Banyuwangi since yesterday for 10 days for a wedding. And obviously nobody has heard about this paranoia here, thanks God.
Back to Bali in 10 days if the world hasn't stopped spinning by then !
In France, which is a country with a fair health system, and that we both know well the spreading of the virus has accelerated in the past 72 hours. Number of cases has doubled with almost 4500 declared case and 91 death.
Back in 2002/2003 it took over 8 month to tackle the SARS epidemic which spread over 26 countries. On March 5th, 2020 84 countries were concerned with declared cases of Covid 19. On March 7th, it was 96 countries. On March 13th (2 days ago) it was 120 countries.
As of today more than 156.000 cases have been OFFICIALLY confirmed worldwide, with almost 6.000 death already. In 2003 the outbreak of SARS concerned 8.000 cases with "less than" 800 death over the whole period.
It is not a question of having 20 years in Indo or more than 30 in SEA. First, this kind of statements have little sense. One may have spend 30 years in a place and still know little about a country, its culture, its government and its people.
NOTHING has ever come close to what is going on at the moment and we live in a country which is anything but prepared to manage a major sanitory crisis and to deal with a particularly severe contagious disease.
The world has known major pandemic situations in the past, some which have most certainly taken a greater death toll than the Covid19 will (the Bubonic plague of the XIVth century took between 75 to 200 million life - estimation vary - which was at the time around a third of the total world population) but it is a fact that the world didn't have to face a similar worrying sanitary situation with a contagious disease, with a disturbing high mortality rate, spreading so fast in the past 50 years. It did not, so it is perhaps wiser to take some precautions, and anyway, protecting one's family is a concern for some of us.
In another post you say that "concerning the governments of course they dont want to be seen to do less than their neighbour..." Well, do you think that they take lightly decisions (ex: closure of all bars, restaurants, shops, closure of borders, cancellation of every public events, etc) which affects tremenduously their economy for a durable length of time? The first thing politics think of is their reelection. Taking decision which will lay down tens of thousands of workers for something which is not worth it is not a safe and smart way to be reelected. If they do so, it is because they are forced to in front of the sanitary situation.
In Indonesia, the odds that the economy will be badly affected are high. The Rupiah is already down badly and many companies have already lay down staff, particularly in the tourism sector. We live in a country were many have little resource beside their meager wages and no savings.
If the situation lasts the sanitary crisis
may breed a major social problem. Some of us have seen in 1998 that when people have no food on their plate it can turn ugly.
On a personal note, would I advise people to stockpile foods and other goods? Nope. But it's very easy for me to say so since my company stock of food could easily feed my whole hood for a few months. So it's really not a concern
for me. But I wouldn't blame or mock anyone taking steps to ensure that one's family is safe and well fed.
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