The Spike In COVID-19 Cases In Papua Is Setting Records, This Is Why

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JAKARTA - The addition of COVID-19 cases reached a new record as of Thursday, December 3. Based on data from the Ministry of Health (Kemenkes), there were 8,369 new positive cases from 62,397 specimens examined.

The provinces that reported the most new cases were Papua with 1,755 and West Java 1,648 new cases.

Responding to these drastic additions, Spokesperson for the COVID-19 Task Force (Satgas) Wiku Adisasmito said this was due to the inadequate system to accommodate real-time data recording, reporting, and validation of various provinces. This is what causes the numbers that enter the Ministry of Health's data to be an accumulation of the previous days.

He gave the example of Papua Province. According to Wiku, the figure for 1,755 cases is not today's daily figure but an accumulation since 19 November.

"Papua today reported 1,755 cases. This is an accumulation of additional positive cases of COVID-19 from 19 November to the present," Wiku said in an online press conference broadcast on the Presidential Secretariat YouTube account, Thursday, December 3.

Therefore, to prevent the accumulation of this data, Wiku asked local governments to consolidate data directly with the central government as soon as possible.

Even so, Wiku did not deny that the increase in COVID-19 cases occurred due to a decrease in the discipline of health protocols in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially during the last long holiday. "Regrettably, the trend continues to show a decline in individual compliance with 3M (wearing masks, maintaining distance and washing hands) in this regard with the long holiday period last October," he said.

Wiku reminded the public not to be careless in carrying out health protocols to prevent transmission of COVID-19.

"If people are increasingly careless about implementing health protocols, it will increase transmission and if testing and tracing is carried out, positive cases will increase and if it continues like this, no matter how many health facilities are available, it will not be able to accommodate the surge that occurs," he said.

In addition, Wiku also admitted that the addition of positive cases of COVID-19 on Thursday was the highest increase in cases. Because previously, the number of positive cases in Indonesia was only around 5,000 and it has never been this high.

"Previously we have never touched the figure of 5,000 daily positive cases. Unfortunately, daily positive cases continue to increase, even today it has reached more than 8,000 cases. This is a large and intolerable number," he concluded.