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Indonesians Outraged At MOH & DG Over Covid-19 Imported Cases Misunderstanding

Indonesians Outraged At MOH & DG Over Covid-19 Imported Cases Misunderstanding

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A slight misunderstanding is causing a rift between Malaysians and Indonesians in cyberspace.

Indonesians are apparently outraged over statements supposedly made by Malaysia’s Health Director-General Datuk Dr. Noor Hisham Abdullah on the status of the Covid-19 pandemic in the country.

Recently, the DG had announced that more than 70% of identified Covid-19 infections in Malaysia had been the result of imported cases, where some 90 Malaysian individuals returning home from Indonesia were confirmed positive for the virus.

It would seem that the message got a bit lost in translation when one alternative media channel wrongly assumed that Malaysia was trying to dis its southern neighbor.

The Garuda Revolution Instagram page issued a call to action to its Indonesian followers and confronted Malaysia for essentially having insulted the country and its citizens.

In a posting donned with the image Dr. Noor Hisham, the page apparently called out Malaysia’s hubris for making such statements after previously being the country worst-hit by the pandemic in the Southeast Asian region.

View this post on Instagram

WOOOOOOOOYYYYYY. NEGARA KAU DULU YANG BANYAK KENA CORONA DARIPADA KAMI. NI ORANG NGOMONG SEENAK UDEL AJA NDAN, SIKAAAT NDAN. GARUDA SATU MONITOR, GARUDA SATU, SELURUH PASUKAN, CARI INSTAGRAMNYA. Source CNN Indonesia . . ” Sejauh ini, Hisham menuturkan ada 12.672 warga Malaysia telah dikarantina dan diperiksa karena baru melakukan perjalanan ke luar negeri. Dari belasan ribu orang itu, pemerintah Malaysia menemukan 139 warganya positif corona. Hisham menuturkan 99 orang atau 71,22 persen dari 139 warganya yang positif corona itu ternyata baru pulang dari Indonesia. Sementara itu, 14 warganya kedapatan baru melakukan perjalanan dari Inggris, 13 orang dari Singapura, lima orang dari Turki, tiga orang dari Belanda, dua dari Amerika Serikat, dan masing-masing satu orang dari Thailand, Prancis, dan Bangladesh. Dalam jumpa pers di Putrajaya pada Minggu (26/4), Hisham menuturkan pemerintah terus berupaya menggunakan berbagai metode dan pendekatan untuk melacak penularan Covid-19 di Negeri Jiran. “Sebagai catatan, dengan pendekatan yang ditargetkan, Kemenkes berhasil melacak lebih banyak kasus Covid-19,” kata Hashim seperti dilansir Malaysia Kini.

A post shared by Timnas Indonesia (@garudarevolution) on

And it would seem that a number of Indonesians brought into the fake news as comments online started filling up with, let’s just say, indelicate messages aimed towards Malaysia.

Even Malaysia’s Health Ministry’s (MOH) social media channels were not safe from being the point of assault as a number of spam messages were floating in its comment sections.

(Credit: Instagram)

Meanwhile, Malaysians along with Indonesians who correctly understood the statement were also flooding social media in efforts to explain the misinterpretation and address the miscommunication between the two nations.

(Credit: Instagram)

Here’s to hoping that we’ve managed to get the message across and all misunderstandings have been resolved.


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