Corona Rintawan (born 1 January 1975) is an Indonesian physician specializing in

emergency medicine Emergency medicine is the medical speciality concerned with the care of illnesses or injuries requiring immediate medical attention. Emergency physicians (often called “ER doctors” in the United States) continuously learn to care for unsche ...

. Active in the field since 2003, he has led the NGO

Muhammadiyah Muhammadiyah ( ar, محمدية; 'followers of Muhammad'); also known as the Muhammadiyah Society ( id, Persyarikatan Muhammadiyah) is a major Islamic non-governmental organization in Indonesia.A. Jalil HamidTackle the rising cost of living longer ...

's medical response team in multiple disasters, most recently the COVID-19 pandemic.

Early life

Corona was born in

Surabaya Surabaya ( jv, ꦱꦸꦫꦧꦪ or jv, ꦯꦹꦫꦨꦪ; ; ) is the capital city of the Provinces of Indonesia, Indonesian province of East Java and the List of Indonesian cities by population, second-largest city in Indonesia, after Jakarta. L ...

, East Java on 1 January 1975, as the third child of four siblings. Corona's name originated from the Toyota Corona, which was a popular car in Indonesia in 1975. Corona is a graduate of the Faculty of Medicine at the

University of Brawijaya The University of Brawijaya ( id, Universitas Brawijaya, abbreviated as UB), was established on 5 January 1963 and located in Malang. It is an autonomous state university in Indonesia. University of Brawijaya is recognized as one of the elite ...

. In 2018, he earned a specialist degree in

Career

Corona joined

-affiliated medical organizations in 2006, and as of 2020 he practices medicine at the Muhammadiyah hospital in Lamongan, East Java.

Emergency medicine

Corona's work in emergency medicine began in 2003, when he was deployed to

Aceh Aceh ( ), officially the Aceh Province ( ace, Nanggroë Acèh; id, Provinsi Aceh) is the westernmost province of Indonesia. It is located on the northernmost of Sumatra island, with Banda Aceh being its capital and largest city. Granted a s ...

, and he also worked in the area following the

2004 tsunami An earthquake and a tsunami, known as the Boxing Day Tsunami and, by the scientific community, the Sumatra–Andaman earthquake, occurred at 07:58:53 local time (UTC+7) on 26 December 2004, with an epicentre off the west coast of northern Suma ...

. In 2013, Corona was deployed to the Philippines as part of an aid team in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan, and he headed Muhammadiyah's medical response team (Muhammadiyah Disaster Management Center/MDMC) to the April 2015 Nepal earthquake. During the Rohingya refugee crisis in 2017, Corona was appointed to lead Muhammadiyah's team of 50 medical practitioners ("Muhammadiyah Aid") to

Cox's Bazar Cox's Bazar (; bn, কক্সবাজার, Kôksbajar; ) is a city, fishing port, tourism centre, and district headquarters in Southeastern Bangladesh. It is located south of the city of Chittagong. Cox's Bazar is also known by the na ...

, itself under a larger group of Indonesian aid to the refugees of which Corona was coordinator. The aid team encountered a diphtheria outbreak in the refugee camps.

COVID-19 pandemic

Upon the outbreak of COVID-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. 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. The other program was aimed at motivating those who had hoarded face masks to donate them to others. Corona publicly stated his concern about people using chloroquine for self-medication, touted by both Indonesian President

Joko Widodo Joko Widodo (; born 21 June 1961), popularly known as Jokowi, is an Indonesian politician and businessman who is the 7th and current president of Indonesia. Elected in July 2014, he was the first Indonesian president not to come from an elite ...

and American President Donald Trump as a potential cure for COVID-19, and getting drug poisoning. In April, he was enlisted by the Indonesian National Board for Disaster Management (BNPB) as a special staff, resulting in him being replaced at the head of Muhammadiyah's response team. Later on, he criticized government policy to open up restrictions as putting economy over public health.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Corona Rintawan 1975 births Living people University of Brawijaya alumni Indonesian emergency physicians People from Surabaya COVID-19 researchers COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia