Corona Rintawan | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1975-01-01)1 January 1975 (age 50) |
| Alma mater | University of Brawijaya |
| Occupation | Emergency physician |
Corona Rintawan (born 1 January 1975) is an Indonesianphysician specializing inemergency medicine. Active in the field since 2003, he has led the NGOMuhammadiyah's medical response team in multiple disasters, most recently theCOVID-19 pandemic.
Corona was born inSurabaya,East Java on 1 January 1975, as the third child of four siblings.Corona's name originated from theToyota Corona, which was a popular car in Indonesia in 1975.[1][2] Corona is a graduate of the Faculty of Medicine at theUniversity of Brawijaya.[2][3] In 2018, he earned aspecialist degree inemergency medicine.[4]
Corona joinedMuhammadiyah-affiliated medical organizations in 2006, and as of 2020 he practices medicine at the Muhammadiyah hospital inLamongan,East Java.[2]
Corona's work in emergency medicine began in 2003, when he was deployed toAceh,[5] and he also worked in the area following the2004 tsunami.[6]
In 2013, Corona was deployed to the Philippines as part of an aid team in the aftermath ofTyphoon Haiyan,[7] and he headed Muhammadiyah's medical response team (Muhammadiyah Disaster Management Center/MDMC) to theApril 2015 Nepal earthquake.[8] During the Rohingya refugee crisis in 2017, Corona was appointed to lead Muhammadiyah's team of 50 medical practitioners ("Muhammadiyah Aid") toCox's Bazar, itself under a larger group of Indonesian aid to the refugees of which Corona was coordinator.[9][10] The aid team encountered adiphtheria outbreak in the refugee camps.[11]
Uponthe outbreak ofCOVID-19 in Indonesia, Muhammadiyah formed an emergency command center and appointed Corona as its chief, allocating 20 hospitals in Java and Sumatra to handle the disease backed by some 30,000 philanthropic locations operated by the organization in Indonesia.[3][12] Corona prepared two programs to handle the outbreak: one through raising awareness of potential risk factors, which included spreading the awareness of the need for self-isolation.[13] The other program was aimed at motivating those who had hoardedface masks to donate them to others.[14]
Corona publicly stated his concern about people usingchloroquine for self-medication, touted by both Indonesian PresidentJoko Widodo and American PresidentDonald Trump as a potential cure for COVID-19, and getting drug poisoning.[15] In April, he was enlisted by theIndonesian National Board for Disaster Management (BNPB) as a special staff, resulting in him being replaced at the head of Muhammadiyah's response team.[16] Later on, he criticized government policy to open uprestrictions as putting economy over public health.[17]
In 2023, Corona was deployed to an Indonesian field hospital inHassa, Hatay, Turkey following the2023 Turkey–Syria earthquake. He was deputy head of the Indonesian Emergency Medical Team.[18]
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