At least eight people who refused to wear masks during the Covid-19 pandemic have been forced to dig graves for people who died of the coronavirus in Indonesia's East Java province.
According Tribun News article Eight people who refused to wear a mask as a measure of Covid-19 were sentenced by local authorities in Indonesia to social work and forced to work with the three available cemetery workers.
The article notes that mask refusers who were punished were not forced to handle the bodies. They only did the safe manual work of digging the graves and preparing the space with wooden planks to support the cases. The bodies were handled by public officials healths, using a protector latest technology equipment throughout the body, thus ensuring that there is no risk of exposure. However, the eight mask refusers opened the graves without wearing a mask!!
Indonesia enacted a national law in early April requiring citizens to wear a mask. This directive was further intensified in July after East Java saw a spike in Covid-19 cases and a research in the region found that 70% of people in the province did not wear a mask.
Indonesia, as a low- and middle-income country, has struggled to contain the spread of the virus and has used masks as a relatively inexpensive public health measure that can save lives. To date, Indonesia has identified more than 222.000 cases and 8.841 deaths from covid-19. The country recorded 3.141 new cases on Monday alone, with 118 new deaths for the day.
The reluctance of some people to wear masks to protect public health has snowballed. There are mask deniers all over the world, like Germany, η Ινδονησία, η Γαλλία και η Ελλάδα πρόσφατα με τους αρνητές να στείλουν τα παιδιά στο school wearing a mask.
The funny thing is that there are those worldwide who believe that the coronavirus does not exist. As US President Trump said at the beginning. We do not know if Indonesia's solution is effective, but it shows that the knot has begun to reach the scallop, and now the respective rulers have begun to take drastic measures.
Today, after all, the Deputy Minister of Education, Mrs. Sofia Zacharaki, announced that the prosecutors will intervene with the parents who refuse to let their children go to school. Let's see where all this will end up.