JAKARTA – 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.
In speeches, Indonesia’s health minister, Terawan Agus Putranto, told his country's people that they shouldn’t fear the virus, even as tens of thousands around the world were being infected.
Rather than focus on creating social distancing guidelines or ramping up testing, Putranto credited Indonesian “immunity” and the strength of prayer for the country's lack of any infections.
He dismissed as “insulting" a report by Harvard University researchers that said Indonesia must have elected not to report its cases.