If I Could be in Charge

    

      In present time, the whole world is under a great danger. A virus named COVID-19, also known as the corona virus has become a pandemic and put the whole world under an agonizing yet unavoidable situation. With more than two thousand confirmed cases across our country alone, this virus has succeeded in putting its name to the human history as one of the most deadly pandemics. No one can avoid this virus and with no vaccines or cures that have been discovered, this virus is a huge threat to humanity. 

      Activities, even important and governmental activities are being halted or cancelled due to this virus. People are now starting to work, study, and do outdoor activities inside their houses. Economy and price market are both in a disastrous situation as both stocks and price plummet in a rapid rate. The number of confirmed cases has been increasing with no signs of stopping and it makes people panic and raises anxiety that has resulted in panic buying and scarcity of basic daily needs. 

       Our government has been trying to give their best to tackle this issue but I can see a lot of deficiencies in their moves. I truly believe that what is happening at this time is the result of what we have done in the past. If I had been the president during the first outbreak of the COVID-19 virus, I would have prepared my country and people for the worst before it comes.

        We can see that our country wasn't ready when the first outbreak happened and attacked our neighboring countries. We were told that our government had taken a lot of preventive measures but I, personally believe that it was hard to see the "preventive measures" that they said they took.

        If I could be in charge, I would like to inform my people with all the information they need to know about the virus so that I can prevent any malicious and false rumors from spreading. I would also provide the tools to test the virus existence as soon as possible because our current government were late to do this. I would also give out notice to spray all buildings and public places with disinfectants. This way I can make my people feel more secure because they know that their government has what it needs to protect them. Our government failed miserably in doing this because our people knew that we didn't have the tools to detect the virus at the beginning of this outbreak. Our people even received notice from universities that are located outside of our country.

        Our government were also late to apply social distancing which I think could be one of the cause that the spreading of this virus was pretty hard to hold in the beginning. Even until today, we still have people going around the city to go to their workplaces or even hanging out inside a restaurant. It was only a few days ago that we have police officers arresting people who don't obey the rules that our government has put out. I think that we should have done this faster because our people are indeed stubborn so to take strict measures since the beginning is necessary. 

        If I could be in charge, I would apply social distancing since we confirm the first positive case because as we can see our government has put out a lot of failed policies such as opening the public transport late which turned out to be a public chaos where we have people queuing major train stations. By applying social distancing since the beginning, we could have prevented the spread in a more efficient way.

      I  would also try to prevent scarcity in cities, like Jakarta by giving support to factories that produce daily necessities. I would like to have those factories increasing their productions as soon as the outbreak begins because as we can see today, panic buying is a big problem to our society. By doing this, I can assure the availability of goods and assure my people that they have everything provided so there is no need to be scared of not getting daily needs. Our government failed to do so. We can see that a lot of supermarket racks are now empty because our government didn't do this and now our economy is plummeting so to stock in goods will be hard.

     I also would like to ban unnecessary travels and all transportations that are travelling out of town or city must report and get a permission. This way, we can control mobility and the spread of the virus. I would also forbid our people from travelling back to their hometown for any national holiday ,including the Eid Mubarak to minimize the spread of this virus.

     If all of my plan above succeeded, I would apply lock down to highly infected places because I could provide them with their daily needs. Unfortunately, our current government failed to provide enough daily necessities that it would be a hard for us to apply lock down in cities like Jakarta.