An Indonesian politician has come up with an unorthodox way of dealing with individuals who break Covid-19 quarantine rules.
According to Global News, Sragen regency lawmaker Kusdinar Untung Yuni Sukowati, has issued orders directing quarantine violators to be confined to abandoned buildings on the island of Java, where many locals believe that the houses might be haunted.
All this in an effort to impel the superstitious population into following orders set in place to control the spread of Covid-19 seeing that many of those visiting the Central Java province, Indonesia were not self-isolating for 14 days upon their arrival.
Speaking earlier to Indonesian local media, the legislator said that the locals were more than ready to put those who defy self-isolation orders under quarantine in abandoned buildings.
“If they disobey the self-isolation [orders], several villages have asked for my permission to quarantine them in an abandoned elementary school or abandoned houses,” said Sukowati.
“I gave my permission. If need be, they should be locked inside — in a haunted house if necessary. But we’d still feed them and monitor them.” added the Sragen Regency head.
The legislator said that so far, only five people have been quarantined in the abandoned homes.
“If there’s an empty and haunted house in the village, put people in there and lock them up,” Sukowati told the AFP on Tuesday.
A man from Sumatra Island, who is among the five people locked up in ‘haunted’ homes told the AFP that he had not seen any ghosts so far.
This comes as an unknown number of people escaped from the Kenya Medical Training College (KMTC) headquarters, on Mbagathi Road on Tuesday, April 21, putting many Kenyans at risk.
In a now-viral video, the runaways are seen climbing over the walls of the institution with their belongings and then tracing their way back home.
The government through the Ministry of Health also confirmed that more violators had escaped on Monday night, when the security officers took shelter following the pounding rains.
The implementation of dusk to dawn curfew and travel-ban in and out of several counties are among the stringent measures put in place by the government to control the spread of Covid-19.
However, some Kenyans remain defiant to the law and to redress this, the Ministry of Health has warned that those flouting the curfew rules will be assumed to have been in contact with suspected Covid-19 patients and will be placed under mandatory quarantine for 14 days at their own cost.
