Yogyakarta, June 17th 2020—Center for Digital Society or CfDS Fisipol UGM is back again on Wednesday with their new program called Oposit, an interactive discussion on the topic of the digital world. On the fourth session of Oposit, CfDS brought the topic of ‘new normal’ that the government plans to implement. As we all now, on May 7th, the President Joko Widodo starts to create a new normal policy which regulates the new way of living alongside Covid-19. This policy will be implemented to revive the economy which have been dying. New normal is now a hot topic of discussion in which some people believe that it’s not the right policy seeing that Indonesia haven’t fulfilled the new normal requirement from WHO. One of the key indicator of new normal is a flattening curve of Covid-19 cases. However, in the last few days, Indonesia seems to reach its peak with an addition of 1000 new cases daily.
With this Oposit discussion, attendees have a chance to debate upon the pros and cons of the new normal by asking the host to add them on the live stream at @cfds_ugm Instagram account. The first participant who had the chance to voice their opinion was Saqib. He admitted that he feels pessimistic towards the government’s new normal initiative which seems different from WHO’s initiative. There are a couple requirements from WHO to implement the new normal, some of them are being able to do mass testing, strict protocol monitoring, high risk perception, sufficient hospital capacity, a great contact tracing, and a flattening curve.
Seeing the development of Covid-19 in Indonesia, the government seems to not fulfill the requirements and so Saqib believes that Indonesia is not ready for the new normal. Even the lockdown measures are not successfully implemented. Therefore, there should be a stronger argument on why we should move forward with the new normal. “My question is regarding the government’s version of new normal. What is the real basis? Clearly it does not follow WHO’s requirement,” Saqib said.
The second participant, Dita, was also pessimistic about the government’s move. Dita agrees with Saqib’s statement about how Indonesia haven’t fulfilled the needed requirement to move to the new normal phase. Dita argues that the previous measure to tackle the pandemic is not yet fulfilled. The government haven’t done mass testing and Indonesians haven’t obeyed the protocol. Dita argues further that self quarantine will lead to nothing if the new normal is implemented soon.
“I feel pessimistic because i’ve been in quarantine for three months and it’s all for nothing if the management is like this,” she said. Of course, it is normal to feel bored or stressed because of three months of staying at home. To maintain her sanity in quarantine, Dita tries many new things, such as gardening. She once had a dream to have her own garden but she didn’t have the space in her dorm. “So that I don’t veg out, you can try gardening,” she said.
Based on the arguments from the previous participants, Irnas feels pessimistic. However, Irnas also feels a bit happy because she doesn’t have to stay completely at home after three months. She feels that staying at home makes her sleep cycle sloppy as she sleeps when the sun is up and wake up when the sun is gone. That messy sleep cycle is due to the inability to do anything every day since Irnas is also in the red zone. From a macro economy perspective, though Indonesia is not yet ready, this new normal might be good for the economy.
Irnas advices people to follow government’s health protocol and quarantine instructions. “What I’m saying is don’t be too pessimistic, in a dark and uncertain world like the one right now, it’s better to die happy than die sad,” she said. The host agrees with that as well.
Gege also feels a similar problem as does most people which is that she starts to feel bored at home. To counter that, in the early morning Gege jogs at a field near her home. However, she still minimize contact with people during her morning run and after the morning run. After she arrives at home, Gege cools off so that she can shower and wash her clothes afterwards. About the new normal plan, Gege is pessimistic if the government feels like this phase will flatten the pandemic curve.
On the other hand, she also feels optimistic that the economy can grow back and people can be sane again by going outside from their home. “But then again, we need to keep our distance, use our mask, carry a hand sanitizer, and wash our hands. A lot of places have created measures to minimize the spread of the virus, so it is up to us to abide to that,” she explained. The Oposit live stream ended at 8 pm. It can be seen again at CfDS’s Instagram account IGTV page.