Infection risk adds to Indonesian quake woes, while UK tightens curbs
MAMUJU, Indonesia — Medics battled exhaustion and the risk of COVID-19 as they raced on Monday to treat scores of people injured by a devastating earthquake on Indonesia’s island of Sulawesi.
At least 84 people were killed and thousands left homeless by the powerful 6.2-magnitude quake that struck on Friday, reducing buildings to a tangled mass of twisted metal and chunks of concrete in the seaside city of Mamuju.
The National Disaster Mitigation Agency said 73 people died in Mamuju and 11 in Majene, and about 27,850 survivors were moved to shelters. Nearly 800 people were injured, with more than half still receiving treatment for serious injuries.
Masked doctors treated patients with broken limbs and other injuries at a makeshift medical center set up outside the only one of the city’s hospitals that survived the quake relatively intact.
“The patients keep coming,” said Nurwardi, manager of operations at Mamuju’s West Sulawesi General Hospital. “This is the only hospital operating in the city. Many need surgery but we have limited resources and medicine.”
The open-air triage center was desperately short of staff. Those on hand worked frantically despite the risk of contracting coronavirus.
The disaster agency’s chief, Doni Monardo, said authorities were trying to separate high and lowerrisk groups. They provided tens of thousands of anti-coronavirus masks for those needing shelters. He said authorities would set up health posts at the camps to test people for the virus.
West Sulawesi Province has recorded more than 2,500 cases of coronavirus, including 58 deaths. Indonesia has confirmed nearly 908,000 cases and almost 26,000 fatalities.
Global cases surpassed 95 million as of Monday, with more than 2 million deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.
New quarantine rules
In the United Kingdom, where the COVID-19 vaccination drive is gathering pace, strict new quarantine rules requiring isolation for up to 10 days for all travelers arriving in the country begin on Monday in an effort to halt the spread of the highly contagious virus variants.
Britain’s Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, told the BBC’s The Andrew Marr Show on Sunday that the measures, announced on Friday, would be enforced with fines. Authorities would be stepping up checks on travelers who must self-isolate, while enforcement checks at borders would also be “ramped up”.
Passengers must show proof of a negative COVID-19 test taken in the previous 72 hours before traveling, and GPS and facial-recognition technology may be used to check that people are staying in isolation, according to a report in The Times.
Raab said asking all arrivals to self-isolate in hotels was a “potential measure” the government was keeping under review.
Mutant viruses might be immune to the vaccines Britain has acquired, the government fears, and sources told The Times that ministers are now examining New Zealand’s policy of “directed isolation”, whereby everyone arriving is charged for a stay at an airport hotel.
While the pandemic forced the UK to shut its borders, Australia’s chief medical officer said a full reopening of the country’s borders is unlikely this year.
Brendan Murphy, who headed Australia’s initial response to COVID-19 as the chief medical officer before becoming the Secretary of the Department of Health, said on Monday full-scale travel to and from Australia would likely not resume until 2022.
“I think we’ll go most of this year with substantial border restrictions,” he said. “Even if we have a lot of the population vaccinated we don’t know whether that will prevent transmission of the virus and it’s likely that quarantine will continue for some time.”
Australia’s borders were closed to noncitizens and nonresidents from March 20, 2020.
This is the only hospital operating in the city. Many need surgery but we have limited resources and medicine.”
Nurwardi, manager of operations at Mamuju’s West Sulawesi General Hospital