Article here about the outright fraud and lies which Indonesia is just one among many countries in committing to reduce its numbers
en.tempo.co/read/1363234/playing-with-data
According to the health ministry, as of July 3, there were 60,695 coronavirus positive cases with total deaths at 3,036. This is the number that is announced every day by Disease Control and Prevention Director-General Achmad Yurianto, who is also the government's spokesman for Covid-19.
The government has never openly admitted that the Covid-19 task force has different data. Based on the data by this institution, as of the same day, July 3, the number of positive patients was 62,050, with total deaths at 13,885. This total means that the death toll in Indonesia is the highest in Southeast Asia.
[note, as of July 17 the total is now up from 3036 to 3957, which is quite alarming]
I guess the number of deaths is actually much higher than either number, because the Indonesian healthcare is totally dysfunctional:
- the national health system reimburses private hospitals for procedures performed by people paying monthly premiums, but whereas the government doesn't pay for nonsense patent drugs which enrich hospitals and doctors with fat commissions and foreign holidays, the private hospital will directly rip off private patients as far as they can and culturally people won't challenge the doctors on why they are using overpriced medicines that aren't clinically indicated.
- the government has commandeered certain hospitals for covid, which is nice in theory, but....
- the national health system (BPJS) doesn't cover covid, it's instead reimbursed directly from the central government, so the hospital has to reclaim the money separately and...
- private hospitals won't give you a covid test at all. They demand you pay for it. Until recently they were charging around £22 for an antibody test, which is a shit test, but the government has cut this to £10.
- national health patients trying to get into a private hospital with any illness will be routinely told to get an antibody test before they will be treated, even though they have national health coverage
- if that test is positive then they will be sent off to another hospital where covid is treated directly and the first hospital will try to demand cash money to recover all their expenses
- now the problem is that there are at least three antibodies, igA, igG and igM. We have NO antibodies before symptoms emerge (but maybe still infectious, which is why the antibody test is shit). After symptoms emerge igM antibodies are produced, and then as we recover igG antibodies. In theory igM antibodies should be gone within a month of infection, while igG antibodies may be detectable for years.
- So the general indication is if igM is positive then that's a recent/current infection, while if igM is negative and igG is positive then that's a PAST infection, and the patient is not infectious.
- Of course a patient who is igG+, igM- might still be ill. But not with covid! People got ill before we had covid.
- So anyway, on the basis of igG+ with no igM result given the patient is sent off to the covid-19 hospital (jail). THey can't see anyone, or leave, and who knows if they are fed properly, etc. There they are given a proper RT-PCR test at public expense. But that takes probably a couple of weeks to come back.....
So given that people who run hospitals are generally smarter than the government and know how to extract their pound of flesh, it's no surprise that they are taking advantage of the situation to avoid treating sick people (for anything) with the excuse of covid....
So you have people worrying about going to hospital because they might be 'extraordinarily rendered' to the covid-19 hospital, and then members of their family quarantined and unable to work (because of course it's hard to earn a living due to covid-19).
And you have a recipe for mass unrecorded infections, unrecorded deaths, and mass spread of covid-19.
Some lunatics are imagining that Western tourists might be going to Bali in September.
Australia is charging returning residents A$3000 for compulsory quarantine and it is to be hoped that more Western countries follow suit so that people understand that if you go off to somewhere that is unwilling or incapable of addressing covid-19, then you need to pay the full cost of your lunatic selfishness. This would include, for example, people going on cruises in the future. Fine, go off to Bali on holiday. But don't expect repatriation flights at public expense, be compulsorily quarantined when you come back, etc.
And of course we should NOT trust the statistics of developing countries at anything like face value.