Indonesia's 'new normal' comes with infection risk

Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi has millions of people on her mind. Around nine million to be precise, which is how many Indonesians the World Bank estimates work outside the country.

"Ensuring they are safe has become one of my top priorities," Retno tells AFR Weekend. In an effort to reach some of those stranded, Retno's department has dispatched more than 400,000 "basic needs" packages including rice, cooking oil, other food products, masks and hand sanitiser.

Some 370,000 of these packages went to Indonesians living in Malaysia. "These people all lost their jobs. They didn't have anything to eat. That's why the government decided to jump in and help," she says.

Another priority has been sourcing medical equipment and medicine to treat COVID-19 patients. "Of course everybody need these right now so we have to be very creative," Retno adds.

It's a far cry from taking on China over the South China Sea or any of the usual concerns that dominate foreign policy but right now every aspect of Retno's job seems COVID-19 related.

It's the same for all her ministerial colleagues but to date the Indonesian public can barely bring itself to give the government a passing grade, such has been the level of back-tracking and ambiguity. Now the Jokowi government has decreed that in much of the country the crisis is over and it is time to move to what it has christened the "new normal".

Officially 24,538 people in Indonesia have tested positive to COVID-19 as of Thursday and 1496 of these have died. The true numbers are likely much higher – there are another 13,250 showing symptoms who have not been tested or are still waiting for a result. However, with a population of 270 million, Indonesia has so far fared much better than the US – population 328 million – which this week passed the grim milestone of 100,000 COVID-19 deaths.

The better-than-expected situation is not the result of good planning. The Jokowi government was still famously hoping it could keep the virus at bay through February and dithered over social restrictions until worrying forecasts from the University of Indonesia helped spur action.

In March, University researchers warned if no action were taken, the outcome could be 2 million infections and 250,000 deaths.

"That would have been around one per cent of the population which, horrific as it sounds, would have been reasonable in the international context," says the University of Melbourne's Tim Lindsey.