The news is that at Kepuh village in Indonesia has been haunted by ghosts recently where there are mysterious white figures jumping out at unsuspecting passersby, then gliding off under a full-moon sky.
This is a way that the villager try to keep their people in door by deploying a special cast of “ghosts” to patrol the streets, hoping that age-old superstition will keep people indoors and safely away from the coronavirus.
“We wanted to be different and create a deterrent effect because the pocong is spooky and scary,” said Anjar Pancaningtyas, head of a village youth group that coordinated with the police on the unconventional initiative to promote social distancing as the coronavirus spreads.
Known as pocong, the ghostly figures are typically wrapped in white shrouds with powdered faces and kohl-rimmed eyes. In Indonesian folklore, they represent the trapped souls of the dead.
It wasn’t working at first, where when they first started appearing this month they had the opposite effect. Instead of keeping people in, they bought them out to catch a glimpse of the apparitions.
The organisers have since changed tack, launching surprise pocong patrols, with village volunteers playing the part of the ghosts.
Maybe Singapore should try this. Lotsa elderly people are not listening and still roaming around.