Yogyakarta, September 25th 2021─FISIPOL UGM Student Board (DEMA) held a webinar titled “September GERAM (Gericau HAM) X Eunoia ” on Saturday (25/9). The theme of this webinar is “Human Rights Issue and Social Inequality in the Covid-19 Management ” which invited Usman Hamid (Chairman of the Public Virtue Research Institute) and Abra Talattov (INDEF Researcher). The event was held virtually through a Zoom meeting.
There needs to be an evaluation on the social inequality in the pandemic management based on several principles in the human rights perspective. Usman Hamid said that those principles include the principles of equality and non-discrimination, the principles of participation, the principle of transparency and accountability, and the principle of international help and collaboration. However, so far, there are several problems because of the lack of attention towards those principles in the COVID-19 management. “For example, the social aid to help those that live paycheck to paycheck is not done by the state and one of the reasons behind this lack of action is the corruption in the social aid fund.” he said.
Usman said that the problems we see are only the ones on the surface because the social aid budget that was corrupted is estimated to be half of the total budget meant for citizens struggling with their economy. It is sad to say that the problem is not solved thoroughly because there is an attempt to stop further investigation towards the issue. “This all goes to say that the COVID-19 pandemic management is not like what we expected,” he said.
Furthermore, Abra Talattov said that the decrease of COVID-19 cases since the lockdown creates several questions. Abra analyzed the case decrease from several perspectives. First, the decrease of cases could be because when the case peaked there were a lot of people who contracted the virus but wasn’t detected so it creates a herd immunity. On the other hand, the vaccination process has not included the whole population. Second, the decrease of cases could also be attributed to the decrease of testing rate. The new school clusters are not dealt with a decrease of testing towards the family of the educators and the students. Third, as many as 1900 health care workers died in August 2021 which shows to what extent the government can make sure that healthcare workers can take care of themselves and other people. In light of that condition, there is a concern that a third wave will arrive. “The third wave needs to be anticipated because the risks and signs are big. The existence of education, office, and market clusters, as well as other probabilities,” Abra said.