Authorities of Kepuh village, in Sukoharjo regency of Indonesia’s Central Java province, are using an innovative technique to keep people indoors during the COVID-19 pandemic.
They are ghosting their citizens, in the literal sense—and not how the millennials mean it.
Mysterious figures jump out at unsuspecting passersby and glide off without a trace. Little do the citizens know that these are, in fact, volunteers dressed-up as ‘pocong’ or the shroud ghosts.
A gang or rather a cast of ‘ghosts’ have been deployed to patrol the streets. Local authorities hope that folklore around the shroud ghosts will keep people off the streets during the pandemic, says a Reuters report.
The volunteers or ‘ghosts’ dressed as trapped souls of the dead, however, had the opposite effect when they started appearing on the streets at the beginning of the month—more people started venturing out, hoping to spot one!
President Joko Widodo had hesitated to impose a national lockdown to fight the pandemic. According to a report in the Jakarta Post, Widodo feels that a national lockdown is not ideal for Indonesian society. He instead, post a virtual meeting with cabinet ministers, asked them to prepare regulations on mass social distancing and urged citizens to follow good personal hygiene, including to wash their hands at regular intervals.
He further instructed heads of regional governments to follow guidelines drafted by the central government to impose social distancing in their respective regions.
It has now come upon heads of local communities in Indonesia, including the head of the Kepuh village, to take matters into their own hands and impose patrols to impose lockdowns and restrict movements in and out of the village.
There are now 4,241 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Indonesia and 373 deaths.
