Public perceptions on the implementation of large-scale social restrictions policy as an effort in managing Covid-19 pandemic in Greater Surabaya area / Diraisnu Gozali and Falih Suaedi

The World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak to be a global pandemic on March 11, 2020 (World Health Organization, 2020). On April 9, 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic had spread to 34 provinces in Indonesia. As of July 6, 2021, there were 2,345,018 positive cases in Indonesia, this condition places Indonesia as the country with the most positive cases in Southeast Asia (Worldometer, 2021). In response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia, on March 31, 2020, Indonesian President Joko Widodo signed Government Regulation No. 21/2020, which regulates large-scale social restrictions that allow local governments to restrict the movement of people and goods into and out of their respective areas. The Greater Surabaya area is one of the areas that implemented this policy due to the increasing number of cases of COVID-19 transmission at that time. The Greater Surabaya area consists of the City of Surabaya, Sidoarjo Regency, and Gresik Regency. The city of Surabaya is the epicenter of the spread of COVID-19 in the Greater Surabaya area, while Sidoarjo and Gresik districts are buffer areas, which also experienced an increasing trend of positive patients because they have very close regional interaction patterns. After the large-scale social restriction policy was implemented, the total number of positive COVID-19 cases in the Greater Surabaya area was 4,354 cases. This means that the implementation of the large-scale social restriction policy has not been able to reduce the rate of transmission of COVID-19, especially in the Greater Surabaya area.