Indonesia: Dig a grave for COVID-19 victims if you don’t wear a mask
Jakarta, Sep 15: The number of COVID-19 infection is in the surge across the globe. Govt, authorities are implementing different methods to keep safe people and prevent the infection. Yet it seems people are not care enough to follow the rules like wearing masks in public and avoid crowd for their and others' good.
The local authorities in Indonesia's East Java have devised an unconventional strategy to penalise people who refused to wear face masks and asked them to dig graves at a public cemetery in Ngabetan village.
According to a report in The Jakarta Post, eight people who refused to wear face masks in public during the coronavirus pandemic were ordered by local authorities to dig graves for people who died due COVID-19.
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"There are only three available gravediggers at the moment, so I thought I might as well put these people to work with them," Cerme district head Suyono told the news agency.
"Hopefully this can create a deterrent effect against violations," Suyono said. He further expressed concerns over the increasing number of Covid-19 cases in Cerme, and added that this had resulted in authorities tightening Covid-related protocols in the village.
Suyono assigned two people to each grave to assist the gravediggers. Of the two people, one is tasked with digging the grave while the other with laying wooden boards inside the hole to support the corpse, said the report.
No
anti-maskers,
who
are
being
punished,
are
forced
to
handle
the
dead
bodies,
it
noted.
Suyono
further
said
that
the
number
of
COVID-19
cases
continued
to
increase
in
Cerme,
which
had
prompted
the
village
administration
to
strengthen
protocols
in
the
region,
said
the
report.
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Meanwhile, Indonesia's capital Jakarta has been witnessing a surge in COVID-19 cases with more than 54,000 of the nation's 2,18,000 cases. The city also has recorded 1,391 deaths of the nation's toll of 8,723.