A quick testing site in Indonesia (Photo: Xinhua/VNA) Jakarta (VNA) - Indonesian authorities said on July 13 that the country is planning to impose sanctions against violators of health protocols amid the COVID-19 pandemic in order to tighten the public discipline which President Joko Widodo assessed is still low.
Earlier, at a cabinet meeting on the same day, President Joko Widodo asked cabinet members to consider imposing sanctions against health protocol violators.
The President called for priority given to dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic in eight provinces, including East Java, Jakarta, West Java, South Sulawesi, Central Java, North Sumatra and Papua.
He also urged speeding up testing by preparing more mobile and fixed laboratories in localities, with the goal of increasing the number of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests from the current 20,000 to 30,000 per day.
According to the Indonesian Ministry of Health, in the past 24 hours, the country recorded an additional 1,282 COVID-19 cases, bringing the total number of people infected with the coronavirus to 76,981, including 3,656 deaths.
Meanwhile, the Philippine Ministry of Health announced that 846 more cases of COVID-19 and 65 related deaths were recorded in the country on the day, bringing the total number of coronavirus infections to 57,006, including 1,599 fatalities.
The number of COVID-19 cases in the Philippines has tripled since President Rodrigo Duterte eased lockdown measures in the capital Manila in June to recover the economy./.
VNA
