Kanisius Minggu, a journalist at Obor Nusantara, spoke of having undergone swab testing along with Klemens Sfunit, Alfred Otu, and Terry Nayoan from different media outlets.
The journalists had come in close physical contact with Minister Prabowo after interviewing him and having a photo session with him on the sidelines of his working visit to the district on Aug 29.
Minggu noted that the swab test result will be available sometime in the next week.
"We are expecting a negative test result," he stated.
Apart from the four journalists, a local police officer and 10 officials of the East Nusa Tenggara provincial government had also been subject to swab tests after also coming in direct contact with Prabowo during his recent working visit.
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A worrisome trend has arisen in the past two weeks for Indonesia that has been battling to flatten its coronavirus curve since March, 2020.
The country registered a spike in the COVID-19 infection rate, with over three thousand new cases added daily. Furthermore, over 100 frontline doctors have succumbed to the infection.
On September 3, 2020, for instance, 3,622 new cases were reported over a 24-hour period, and on September 8, Indonesia had recorded 3,046 fresh infections, thereby pushing the total tally of confirmed COVID-19 cases to 200,035.
In dealing with the soaring number of new confirmed cases, Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan declared the re-enforcement of PSBB that would come into effect from Sept 14, 2020, based on the emergency COVID-19 situation in the capital city.
Meanwhile, President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) renewed calls for his Indonesia Onward Cabinet's members to adopt requisite measures to halt the spread of COVID-19 emerging from office, family, and regional election clusters.
"Be cautious of office, family, and later, regional election clusters of COVID-19. Please repeatedly remind about this aspect," Jokowi stated at a cabinet meeting on handling health and economic recovery issues to strengthen reformation early this week.
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Translator: Benediktus SSJ, Rahmad Nasutio
Editor: Sri Haryati
Copyright © ANTARA 2020
