A viral photo of a COVID-19 test result allegedly used to wrap up street food in Indonesia has made headlines and prompted an official investigation in a country that has become the new epicenter of the pandemic.
The image, which featured oily paper with a positive test result and name redacted, was first posted to a popular Instagram account about goings on in Depok City on the outskirts of the capital, Jakarta.
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According to the account, it had been sent by a diner who had bought fritters from a hawker but realized “in horror” what it was wrapped in.
Still, they ate the snack, and seemed to have a sense of humor about the unusual wrapping, despite the alarming surge in infections in the Southeast Asian country. VICE World News could not independently verify the document.
Indonesia has overtaken India and Brazil as global coronavirus hotspots, reporting daily COVID-19 infections by the tens of thousands, placing intense pressure on its health system that is already stretched thin. With hospitals overwhelmed, car parks have been turned into makeshift emergency rooms.
Vaccination rates hover at only around 7 percent, and deaths are also rising as the Delta variant rips through Indonesia and other countries across the region.
The photo was met with shock and outrage from Indonesian users on Instagram, and was reported on in multiple local media outlets.
“We don’t even know if the patient is still alive or not,” one Instagram user commented, clearly perplexed at the use of health results as food wrapping.
Others expressed their concerns about personal data and privacy. “I’m more worried to see someone’s health data being exposed,” another user said.
It’s common practice in Indonesia for street vendors to reuse materials like newspapers, examination papers and airsickness bags to wrap food for customers. Official state documents and even photocopied personal identity cards have turned up as hawker takeout bags.
But given the severity of the pandemic in the country, Indonesian health officials and police said they were investigating the matter.
The head of the criminal investigation unit of the Depok City Police told local media that his team is currently trying to prove the photo was taken in Depok.
Responding to the viral post, Depok health secretary Rani Martina said wrapping food in used paper did not meet local health standards. Authorities have also cast doubt on the photo, because COVID-19 test results are sent digitally. Of course, they can be printed out.
“We need to check when the document was made, and whether it was [indeed] an original copy,” Martina told the Kumparan news website, adding that street vendors seldom paid attention to warnings from officials to stop using personal documents to wrap their food in.
