Hi folks, how’s your New Year, did anything special? Are you among those who vacayed overseas and brought home the omicron variant? If you did go overseas, at least the quarantine is 10 days now, not 14, and that also means you’re vaccinated. Welcome to the second edition of the Nuiceletter for 2022. We’re working on making this regular again so fingers crossed. Also, expect something special from us later this month.
Brace Yourselves!
The third wave may be upon us. For the past few months we’ve only had 100 to 200 new cases daily but that began to change at the beginning of 2022. On January 1st, our daily additional cases were 274. They then jumped to 404 on January 5th and then 533 the following day. Our weekly cases went from roughly 1,300-1,500 in December to 3,000 this past week.
And it’s not like we weren’t warned. Experts have already predicted that there would be a spike in confirmed cases during the holidays and urged people not to travel and avoid crowded places. But the warning seemed to fall on deaf ears. The Transportation Ministry said 5.8 million people travelled between December 17th and January 2nd. Airplane passengers rose by 10.2%, train by 56.4%. Meanwhile, 16,939 Indonesians travelled overseas between December 22 and 29.
The government had been calling for people not to travel for the holidays, especially overseas. But at the same time, they cancelled plans to tighten the PPKM (Enforcement of Community Activity Restriction) to level 3 as well as plans to ban private sector employees from taking leave and limit the travel ban only to civil servants.
The government also claimed that they were tightening travel requirements, but decided that they wouldn’t tell vehicles to go back to where they came from if their occupants don’t carry negative Covid-19 tests.
Then there is the quarantine policy that kept changing. First, the government was going to mandate 10-14 day of quarantine depending on what countries the travellers had been to. This was made official on Jan 1 and it was supposed to last until the end of 2022. But guess what? Two days later, the government changed it to 7-10 days.
They also decided to bar foreigners from 14 countries from entering or transiting Indonesia. These countries, the government said, have confirmed community transmission for the Omicron variant (South Africa, Botswana, Norway and France), have more than 10,000 confirmed Omicron cases (U.K. and Denmark) and countries that are geographically close to them (Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Eswatini and Lesotho).
Noticeably absent from the list are the U.S. of A and Australia both of which not only have community transmission but are dominated by the omicron variant just like Botswana and the others. The former, hit a world record one million confirmed Covid-19 cases in one day. ONE DAY. They weren’t kidding when they said go big or go home.
At least the government is now saying no more high ranking public officials skipping quarantine… unless you have some medical or familial emergencies of course.
And just when you thought international travel was going to be tightened, the government decided to go ahead and allow people to perform the umrah minor pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. Nevermind that our neighbor Malaysia decided to suspend the pilgrimage because many of those returning from umrah were carrying the omicron variant. 928 of 1220 presumptive omicron cases in Malaysia were from Saudi Arabia.
Now, cases in Indonesia could still rise further, particularly after these globe trotting holiday goers return. In fact, one celebrity who just returned from a holiday in Turkey with her diamond-play-button YouTuber son-in-law’s family, already tested positive for Omicron, although the son-in-law showed proof that he and his wife tested negative. Seven other people who were travelling with her also tested positive for Covid along with seven more who were on the same flight. Authorities are not yet sure if they’ve also been infected with Omicron.
This celebrity, who btw was once stricken with meningitis and autoimmune diseases and thus had comorbidity and already had Covid once before, defended her decision to holiday in Turkey, a country which recorded 60,000+ new cases daily, saying that she was also seeking treatment for her condition. Yeah… not sure if it’s the right time to do that.
The No Vax Djokovic Saga
But hey! We ain’t the only one with shitty Covid management policy. This year’s Australian Open is making waves for the wrong reasons. The Australian government, along with the government of the state of Victoria where the tournament is being held, made it clear that nobody, especially no foreigner, is to enter Australia unless they’re fully vaccinated. The world number one men’s tennis player however, had came out as an anti vaxxer.
Novak Djokovic announced in April 2020 that, “personally I am opposed to vaccination and I wouldn’t want to be forced by someone to take a vaccine in order to be able to travel.” While there was no vaccine mandate for the Open in 2021 since it was still too early to expect people to be vaccinated, questions remained for the 2022 event.
People want to come and see the world’s best players on the field yet there is this barrier from two local governments preventing the top player from participating. What’s the solution? Debate raged in Australia and across the tennis world for months. Now, we’re weeks away from the tournament, he is in Australia, albeit in a detention hotel, and it’s still not solved. What?
Okay, so earlier this week he announced that he was flying to Australia after all because he had received an exemption. However, upon his arrival he was pulled aside and then sent to a detention hotel because apparently the visa that he holds do not allow for medical exemptions. For that, he needed to have a different kind of visa. His agent did not apply for it and as a result, his visa was canceled upon arrival and Australia’s Prime Minister announced that Djokovic would be deported on the next flight. Not so fast, said the court.
The Australian Federal Government and the Victorian State Government were quick to announce that their international arrivals policies remain the same and no special treatment will be given. They claimed medical exemption may have been given by Tennis Australia for him to play in the tournament but the government did not receive a similar document that allows him entry to the country. Huh? Yeah, so he supposedly needed two medical exemption documents, one to play in the Open, and one to enter the country.
There are now claims that he and his wife caught Covid in December 2021 for the second time (he had been positive in June 2020), which may have been an ace in his favor and would have exempted him from vaccination, at least for a few months, but he hit a lob when he was photographed without a mask attending an event with young tennis players in Serbia the day after his supposed positive test. How’s that for a twist?
The Serbian government, meanwhile is throwing their support behind their star anti vaxxer and there are rallies in Belgrade supporting him. Djokovic is facing the court today to appeal against the cancellation. The ball is in his court and the match is far from done.
What’s with the Spirit Doll Craze?
Adults treating dolls like their real life babies? “Not creepy at all,” said a number of Indonesian celebrities who are “adopting” these so-called “spirit dolls”. Some believe that spirit dolls are inhabited by spirits of dead children, which is why they are “fed”, dressed, fondled, played with and talked to just like that horror movie The Boy or M. Night Shyamalan’s series, Servant. Definitely not creepy at all.
The phenomenon is not exactly new and not exactly limited to Indonesia. In Thailand, spirit dolls have been around since 2014. They are blessed by a monk and said to bring good luck. There are other cultures around the world with a similar concept.
In Indonesia, there is one lady in Bali named Queen Athena who said she has adopted 70 spirit dolls for the past two years. Then there are others who have been adopting spirit dolls for years.
But the phenomenon became the talk of the nation quite recently after one celebrity after another announced that they are adopting spirit dolls. Then the media started asking the Religious Ministry and the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) what they think about the whole thing.
Just let these celebrities have their thing man.
Quick Reads
The Mayor of Bekasi, Rahmat Effendi, was arrested by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) along with 8 other people in a sting operation. The KPK accused the mayor of demanding bribes from several contractors as well as a number of his subordinates looking to get promoted.
A man named Hasan Azhari is suing Gojek and its cofounder and former CEO Nadiem Makarim for Rp24.9 trillion in unpaid royalties, claiming rights to the business idea and service since 2008, before Gojek, Grab, or even Uber started. He has proof and media coverage to back his claims but you can’t copyright an idea.
This is hardly the first time someone is suing the company. In November, a company named Terbit Financial Technology sued the holding company of Gojek and Tokopedia, which recently merged to form GoTo, for Rp2 trillion in damages. The company claimed that it has the right to use the name GoTo, which the company said uses the same writing and pronunciation.
More Presidential Lip Service?
In a video address, President Jokowi instructed the Ministers and the House of Representatives to hasten the process to pass the Sexual Violence Crimes Bill which had been languishing at the House since 2016. However, he also said the same thing last year about the revision of the ambiguously worded Electronic Information and Transaction Law and yet nothing substantial has been done.