Jakarta, CNN Indonesia —
vice President Ma’ruf Amin said the main reason for shifting holiday warning Birthday of Prophet Muhammad SAW with the consideration that there will be no spike in Covid-19 cases due to massive mass movements.
The statement was made by Ma’ruf in response to the government’s policy of shifting the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad SAW on October 19, 2021, to October 20, 2021.
“So it’s not just this time, right, Mr. Coordinating Minister? [PMK], we have shifted several times to avoid people taking advantage of the tight day. Therefore, the reason is that even though it is already low, we are still anticipatory,” he said in Kupang, Sunday (17/10).
Ma’ruf then compared it with the case in India. For him, various relaxations given by the Indian government due to the decline in daily cases of Covid-19 have caught the people there off guard. As a result, it has an impact on the increase in the rate of the spread of the corona virus.
“India, when it was low, then there were easing and even religious events that finally went up again. We don’t want that to happen again in Indonesia,” he said.
In the same place, the Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Culture (Menko PMK) Muhadjir Effendy said that the research carried out showed a tendency for people to take advantage of ‘tight’ days to extend holidays.
Therefore, he emphasized the government’s decision to shift the national holiday solely to reduce mass movements at the same time.
“So regarding the shifting of holidays for religious holidays, the only consideration is to avoid a long holiday period. Because in the gap between holidays and regular holidays there is a tight day, namely Monday,” said Muhadjir.
Muhadjir explained that Indonesia already has the experience that every long holiday is followed by a massive movement of people from one place to another. This could potentially be followed by an increase in Covid-19.
“And indeed many say that this has started to go down, yes, even with the downturn, we don’t want to play around anymore because we have experience every time we go down, then we allow a long holiday without any policy intervention, it will be followed by an increase in cases,” said Muhadjir .
The chairman of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), Cholil Nafis once criticized that the government’s move to shift religious holidays to limit the mobility of citizens was irrelevant.
Cholil mentioned that various national celebrations have started to be held recently even though they are currently still in a situation of the corona virus pandemic.
(rzr/wis)
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