Foreign Minister: WHO Predicts World COVID-19 Cases To Reach 300 Million Early Next Year

JAKARTA - Minister of Foreign Affairs, Retno Marsudi, said the WHO Director General predicts that the world's COVID-19 cases will reach 300 million by early 2021.

"The WHO Director General estimates that with current trends, the number of cases could reach 300 million by the beginning of next year", Retno said in a Youtube video broadcast by the Presidential Secretariat, Friday, August 20.

In fact, said Retno, the increase in COVID-19 cases reaching 300 million could be faster than the WHO prediction. This is because several countries are currently experiencing an increase in the number of COVID-19 cases.

On August 4, 2021, global COVID-19 cases were recorded to have crossed the 200 million case mark. The world's COVID-19 cases took just six months to reach their second 100 million.

While the first 100 million cases took more than a year. "This means that the spread of COVID-19 is twice as fast as it is now", said Retno.

From August 12 to 19, 2021, Retno said that North America had a 12 percent increase in cases, Europe by 3 percent, and Oceania by 24 percent. However, in Indonesia, the number of cases has decreased.

"We in Indonesia, thank God, during that period we were able to suppress the spread of cases by minus 22 percent", she said.

Meanwhile, the ASEAN region also experienced a decline in cases of minus 0.4 percent. However, there are also several countries in ASEAN that are still experiencing a significant increase in cases.

"Some countries in ASEAN are still experiencing significant increases, such as Brunei Darussalam, which has increased by 304 percent, the Philippines 41 percent, Vietnam 12 percent, and Thailand 6 percent", said Retno.