Epidemiologist Predicts COVID-19 To Increase To 5,000 Cases Per Day

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Epidemiologist from the Faculty of Public Health, University of Indonesia (FKM-UI) Iwan Ariawan estimates that the peak of COVID-19 cases in Indonesia will take place in the next two weeks, reaching 5,000 cases per day.

"I haven't calculated the details yet, but it's possible that the peak figure could be up to 5,000 cases per day," said Iwan Ariawan, quoted by ANTARA, Thursday, May 4.

"According to the pandemic experience in recent years and the SARS-CoV-2 incubation period that causes COVID-19 for two weeks," said Iwan, it is estimated that the trend of increasing cases will peak in the next two weeks.

"Cases began to rise two weeks after the long holiday or massive movement of people. The peak is usually two weeks from the increase," he said.

Iwan, who is now a member of the FKM-UI Antibody Survey Cerology Team (Serosurvey), said a number of factors that affect the current increase in the number of cases in Indonesia are the emergence of new variants of Corona such as Kraken and Arcturus.

The Omicron subvariant has characteristics that are more contagious, or about 1.7 times more infectious than its predecessor variant.

"Because in Indonesia there is no implementation of Community Activity Restrictions (PPKM), and there is a massive movement of people through friendship (width). It is suspected that there will be an increase," he said.

However, Iwan ensured that the COVID-19 variant, which now dominates in Indonesia, has a tendency for mild symptoms and low mortality.

"If transmission can still occur, because vaccines and antibodies from a history of infection do not fully protect against transmission, but protect against severe symptoms and death," he said.

The Ministry of Health reported that the increase in the number of COVID-19 cases as of April 29, 2023, reached 2,074 people in a day, marking the increase in the rate of cases, because it was the highest in the last 10 months.

The increase in cases also occurred in the positivity rate which increased to 14.76 percent. Meanwhile, the Bed Occupacy Ratio (BOR) also increased to 8.1 percent from a total of 42,293 units of bed availability.

In the period 1 to 3 May 2023 as many as 1,423 COVID-19 patients were reported to have died in hospital, almost half of which had not been vaccinated.