KUALA LUMPUR, March 14 ― Four Banten residents have contracted Covid-19 after returning from Malaysia and the popular Indonesian resort island of Bali, Jakarta Post reported yesterday.
Three were believed to have been infected in Malaysia and one in Bali, the news agency quoted Banten governor Wahidin Halim as saying.
“Three of them had recently travelled to Malaysia and one of them had just returned from Bali,” he said on Thursday citing information from the Banten Provincial Health Agency.
The four cases could be among the 34 new Covid-19 infection cases Jakarta confirmed so far.
But the Banten governor did not confirm nor deny, Jakarta Post reported. It also noted that Wahidin did not reveal details about two of the patients or details of their travel to Malaysia or Bali.
Indonesia's official spokesperson on Covid-19, Achmad Yurianto, disputed the Banten governor's information, Jakarta Post also reported.
“We have never conveyed data to the governor,” Achmad, also the director-general of the Indonesian Health Ministry, was quoted as saying.
“The data are submitted to the agency for tracing purposes.”
The information released by the Banten governor came amid criticism against the Indonesian central government.
Critics alleged Jakarta is relying on an “opaque” system to relay information about the outbreak, including failure to report the country's first Covid-19 fatality, a 53-year-old British national known only as case 25.
