Emerging economies almost everywhere need help. In Asia, Indonesia faces one of the most difficult outlooks. Its ability to contain the coronavirus remains uncertain and its economy has already been rocked by a major episode of capital outflows. The principal economic risk, however, is not the old one of a reversal in capital flows prompting a currency crisis, as in the Asian Financial Crisis of the late 1990s. The central problem is primarily a domestic issue — financing a budget deficit large enough to provide adequate health spending, as well as fiscal support to cushion what is likely to be the most severe global economic downturn since the Great Depression. The key is expanding the policy space available to Indonesian policymakers to keep the economy (and society) afloat through the pandemic. Ideally, substantial financial support from the international system would be readily available to countries such as Indonesia, who are otherwise in good economic health. But that is not the world we live in. Indonesia needs to find its own way. It has already begun to do so by temporarily suspending its budget deficit limit and taking the unorthodox step of allowing the central bank, Bank Indonesia, to directly finance part of the deficit. This policy brief argues that desperate times justify unusual methods. If the alternative is an inability to run the necessary budget deficit, then central bank financing is well justified as a temporary emergency measure, to be unwound when the crisis is over. In a world of self-help, Indonesia is on the right path. But Indonesia may need to go much further, especially as its deficit financing shortfall could prove larger than expected, while its fiscal response to the virus has so far been relatively small, and significantly more might be needed.