Indonesia to limit people's mobility as study warns of surge in coronavirus deaths

President Joko Widodo has encouraged social distancing but initially questioned whether Indonesians have the discipline for full lockdowns in contrast with other Southeast Asian nations.

But he started to reconsider this approach after public health experts presented a prediction model to Indonesia's planning agency Bappenas on Friday underlining a need for stronger intervention to prevent a rapid rise in cases and deaths.

The model, a copy of which was reviewed by Reuters, said Indonesia could instigate three stages of intervention: mild, moderate, and high. The latter would include very significant levels of testing and making physical distancing mandatory.

With mild intervention, which includes optional physical distancing and limiting public crowds, the researchers from the University of Indonesia said the virus death toll could soar to over 140,000 among over 1.5 million cases by May.

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"These are just conservative estimates," Pandu Riono, one of the researchers, told Reuters. "But we have to be ready even in these circumstances."

Riono characterised measures currently taken by Indonesia, from rapid testing and deploying regional labs to test samples, as only approaching mild intervention. Health experts have expressed concerns over Indonesia's significant deficit in hospital beds, medical staff and intensive-care facilities.

Riono said the priority now must be to suppress the number of cases. "The message (in our model) is that we don't want people dying, we don't want our siblings dying, our friends dying.