For the first time Wednesday, Indonesia reported more than 54,000 coronavirus cases. This is higher than recent Indian daily infections and has become Asia’s new hotspot.
Officials are concerned that the highly transmissible delta variant may now be spreading from Indonesia’s islands of Java, Bali. This is after outbreaks forced a partial lockdown, which closed all places of worship, parks, and restaurants.
Pandu Riono, an epidemiologist at the University of Indonesia, said Wednesday that he predicts the spread of the infection will continue to grow in July because he is not yet able to stop it. “Emergency social restraints are still inadequate. Because we have the delta variant which is twice as contagious, they should be twice as strict.
On Wednesday, the Health Ministry reported 54,517 cases and 991 deaths. This brings the total number of confirmed pandemic cases to over 2.6 million. The number of fatalities to the pandemic to more than 69,000.
One month ago, the daily case load was around 8,000.
The number of reported cases per day in Indonesia is now higher than India, despite the fact that Indonesia has far fewer people being tested.
India reported less than 39,000 cases Wednesday. This is far below the peak of over 400,000 daily cases in May. It was due to lockdowns in the worst-hit areas, and a more aggressive vaccination drive.
Budi Gunadi Sadikin, Indonesia’s Health Minister, stated that the government has detected the spread of the Delta variant in certain regions other than Java and Bali.
On Tuesday, he told lawmakers that more than 90,000.00 of the 120,000 COVID-19 patient beds are currently occupied in the United States.
“Nationally, there is still some room. Sadikin stated that the bed occupancy rate in certain provinces is high because of the concentration of the delta variant.
Some residents in Jakarta are helping gravediggers who have become overwhelmed due to the rise in deaths over the last month.
Jaya Abidin, a Bogor resident, said that the diggers were too tired and did not have the resources to dig. “The residents in my neighbourhood decided to help because they are too tired,” she added. “If we don’t do this, we will have long waits for a burial in middle of the night.”
The government is having difficulty acquiring enough vaccines to meet its goal of inoculating more 181 million of its 270,000,000 population by March 2022. Only 15.6 million people are fully vaccinated so far.
The fourth-most populous nation in the world has received 137.6 millions doses of Moderna, AstraZeneca, and Sinovac vaccines so far. This is enough to provide vaccinations for approximately 69 million people.
