Indonesia Live Updates

• Indonesia on Monday announced 316 new cases of the coronavirus, bringing the total number of infections in the country to 4,557, according to data provided by a health ministry official, Achmad Yurianto. Yurianto said there were also 26 new coronavirus-related deaths, taking the total number of fatalities to 399.
• The government is considering to start a new national holiday to prevent the annual mass exodus that usually takes place at the end of the Muslim fasting month.
• The governor of Indonesia’s capital Jakarta on Friday (March 20) declared a state of emergency for the next two weeks in the city, the center of Indonesia’s COVID-19 (coronavirus) outbreak.
• Indonesia’s finance minister on Friday also had raised the country’s crisis management protocol level to “standby” from “alert” and warned that if the COVID-19 outbreak persisted, economic growth could fall to between 0%-2.5%.
• Indonesia has faced criticism from medical workers for a slow start to testing that might have more quickly revealed the scale of the problem in an archipelago that spans a distance wider than the continental United States.
• Indonesia will suspend its visa-on-arrival policy for a month from Friday to curb the spread of the deadly COVID-19 virus in the archipelago. The move will effectively shut down the country’s tourism industry, bringing the same economic pain already rippling through Rome, Singapore, Barcelona and other destinations that were once magnets for tourists.