Indonesian capital's reopening triggers concerns of 2nd wave

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Eva Rahmi Salama worries that authorities in Jakarta, Indonesia’s sprawling capital, are acting too soon to lift restrictions put in place two months ago to fight the spread of the coronavirus.

Salama, who lives in Jakarta with her husband, has reason to be concerned. She saw firsthand the tremendous agony the virus can inflict when her mother and father both died from COVID-19 within two days of each other.

As Indonesia’s overall virus caseload continues to rise, Jakarta has moved to restore normalcy by lifting some restrictions this week, saying that the spread of the virus in the city of 11 million has slowed after peaking in mid-April. This has raised concerns among some, including Salama.

“It seems that people are underestimating the virus now,” she said.

Looking at Indonesia's overall handling of the crisis, it’s easy to understand her skepticism.

While Indonesia’s neighbors scrambled early this year to try to contain the spread of the coronavirus, the government of the world’s fourth most populous nation insisted that everything was fine. Indonesia’s southern neighbor Australia and some fellow Southeast Asian countries such as Singapore took action as early as late January that included containment and tracing measures.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo acknowledged in March that his government had chosen to keep the public misinformed about the state of the coronavirus in the country. “Indeed, we did not deliver certain information to the public because we did not want to stir panic,” he said at the time.

Adding to the problems, Indonesia has one of the lowest rates of coronavirus testing in the world, with roughly 1,000 tests per million people, according to government figures — far behind neighboring...