His suggestion was the latest in a string of unorthodox treatments put forward by the president’s cabinet over the past six months, ranging from prayer to rice wrapped in banana-leaf to eucalyptus necklaces.
The remedies reflect the unscientific approach to battling Covid-19 in the world’s fourth-most populous country, where the rate of testing is among the world’s lowest, contact tracing is minimal, and authorities have resisted lockdowns even as infections spiked.
Indonesia has officially reported 6,346 deaths from the pandemic, the highest overall toll in Southeast Asia. Including people who died with acute Covid-19 symptoms but were not tested, the death toll is three times higher.
Indonesia shows no signs of containing the virus. It now has the fastest infection spread in East Asia, with 17% of people tested turning out positive, rising close to 25% outside this capital city.
Figures above 5% mean an outbreak is not under control, according to the World Health Organization.
“This virus has already spread all over Indonesia. What we are doing is basically herd immunity,” said Prijo Sidipratomo, dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the National Veterans Development University in Jakarta.
Herd immunity describes a scenario where a large proportion of the population contracts the virus and then widespread immunity stops the disease from spreading.
Government spokesman Wiku Adisasmito did not respond to detailed questions from Reuters. He said the number of infections was “a warning for Indonesia to continuously improve its handling effort” and that positive cases per capita in Indonesia were lower than most countries.
President Joko Widodo’s office did not respond to questions sent by Reuters.
To be sure, Indonesia’s confirmed 144,945 infections out of a population of 270 million are much less than the millions reported in the US, Brazil and India, and below the neighbouring Philippines, which has less than half Indonesia’s population.
But the true scale of Indonesia’s outbreak may still be hidden: India and the Philippines are testing four times more per capita while the US is testing 30 times more.
Statistics from Our World in Data, a non-profit research project based at the University of Oxford, show Indonesia ranked 83rd out of 86 countries surveyed for overall tests per capita.