You can say that it has been a rough week for Indonesia. Our badminton squad was–quite unfairly–forced to drop out of a major tournament and the vaccine we recently received had become problematic. Meanwhile, two soon-to-be-married celebrities caused quite a stir because their entire matrimonial process from engagement to the wedding ceremony had been scheduled for broadcast on free-to-air TV over several weeks.
All Green for Vaccine?
The Health Ministry announced on Friday that the government will resume the distribution of AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccines starting next week.
Earlier, the ministry delayed the administering of AstraZeneca vaccines because a number of recently immunised people in Europe had suffered an extremely rare form of blood clot - cerebral sinus vein thrombosis (CSVT) - in the brain. There were also patients in numerous countries who suffered anaphylaxis or severe allergic reactions after receiving the jabs.
However, the European Medicines Agency said on Thursday that these cases are very rare and advised all countries to resume using AstraZeneca vaccines. To illustrate just how rare these cases are, in the UK there have only been five cases of CSVT out of 11 million people inoculated. The European agency did not rule out a link to the rare blood clot cases and acknowledged that anaphylaxis is a side effect, but argued that the benefit outweighs the risk.
Indonesia’s Food and Drug Regulatory Agency (BPOM) also expressed their vote of confidence despite acknowledging that there have been “post-vaccination events”. The BPOM advised that extra precautions are needed when inoculating people with low or high count of platelet (the cells which help the body form clot to stop bleeding) or people with a history of anaphylaxis.
So that’s it then? Well... not quite.
On the same day the BPOM issued their recommendation, the Indonesian Council of Ulamas (MUI) announced that the vaccines use a pork-derived trypsin (the thing which breaks down protein) in its production. However, the MUI said its use is permissible because Covid-19 vaccines are urgently needed and the clean and halal substitution is not yet sufficient. The MUI said AstraZeneca vaccines should be forbidden when such substitution becomes more widely available.
Except the vaccine does not contain any animal products. AstraZeneca rejected the claim by MUI citing findings by the British Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. In addition, the British Islamic Medical Association approved the vaccine back in January for all Muslims.
We already have 1.1 million vaccines in our hands right now and because they will expire in May the government is looking to distribute them in a hurry. The government is optimistic that once they are distributed the AstraZeneca vaccines we have today will be gone in a matter of days.
Indonesia is committed to buy 82.8 million AstraZeneca vaccines over the next year and around 10 million are due to arrive in the next two months. MUI’s declaration however could create a setback despite the vaccine having been cleared by many Muslim Middle Eastern nations as well.
And we thought Sinovac was bad...
Sinovac right now:
Exiting All England
Indonesia’s All England team was forced to withdraw from the tournament this week after they had been instructed by British health authorities to isolate for 10 days because a passenger on their flight to England tested positive for COVID-19. Among those out were current and former world champions and Olympic medal-winners.
Badminton World Federation (BWF) and Badminton England said they have made "impassioned attempts" to gain exemptions for the players. However, they discovered the UK Government's legislation regarding self-isolation periods was "non-negotiable".
Naturally, this got Indonesians upset AF because the team had won three matches at that stage. So upset in fact, #BWFMustBeResponsible trended on Twitter and the BWF had to lock the comments section on their Instagram account to keep away the outrage from Indonesian netizens.
Indonesians were further outraged because a Turkish player, Neslihan Yigit, who was on the same flight was not told to withdraw at the same time. While she was eventually withdrawn from the competition, it wasn’t until much later after the BWF had borne the brunt of the outrage.
The Indonesian government responded by lobbying the BWF to retest the Indonesian players and allow them to play or postpone the entire tournament until the Indonesians finish their isolation period. But in the end, the only thing we managed to do is to get the UK’s National Health Service to waive the isolation period so the players can go home quicker.
The players will fly home from London at 5.40pm GMT and will have to isolate for five days upon arrival in Jakarta as per standard procedure for International arrivals.
Celebrity Wedding of the Year
The impending nuptials of YouTuber Muhammad Attamimi Halilintar and singer Titania Aurelie Nurhermansyah drew criticisms from the public as national commercial broadcaster RCTI had programmed their entire wedding process over several weeks, essentially taking over the channel’s main prime time periods.
The deputy chief of the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission claimed that they can’t prevent broadcasters from airing certain programs because they can only monitor what’s already been aired. In an interview with Asumsi, he said that in the past, similar programming blocks were cited and the broadcasters penalised for misusing the public frequency but they cannot act in advance.
RCTI received plenty of complaints over the broadcast of the couple’s engagement but they claimed that there are cultural aspects that they wanted to showcase to their audience. Will you watch the rest of the wedding? Do you even watch regular TV?
Quick Reads
A resident from Slawi was detained by the police and forced to remove an Instagram post critical of the newly elected Mayor of Solo, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, who happens to be the son of the President. In his post he criticised the Mayor’s call to host the finals stage of a football competition in Solo saying that the Mayor knows nothing about football and that his mayorship was handed to him.
The prestigious Sundance Film Festival is coming to Asia this year and Jakarta is set to become the inaugural host. Collaborating with XRM Media and IDN Times, the Sundance Festival is scheduled to be held in “late summer”, which typically means August, and will look to explore and support the independent film scene in Asia. The event is planned to be an annual event with different cities hosting each year.
This next one got us speechless. Two cops in Bandar Lampung robbed a truck carrying compost with Transport Agency staff acting as middlemen to deliver the goods to the buyer, who happens to be a local parliament member. In all, nine people were involved for good valued at less than Rp50 million.
Transport Minister Budi K. Sumadi gave his greenlight to Lebaran travels this year provided that they are conducted with additional health and safety precautions. When the government banned holiday travels last year and canceled the extended holiday, there had been fewer than 2000 daily cases nationally. This year, we’re currently looking at around 5000 daily cases although the holiday period is still two months away.