Task Force Regrets Decline In COVID-19 Testing When Cases Begin To Decrease

JAKARTA - Spokesperson for the COVID-19 Task Force, Wiku Adisasmito, said that currently weekly COVID-19 cases have decreased again, as happened in previous weeks.

"Weekly COVID-19 cases as of August 22, 2021 have again decreased from the previous 188,323 to 125,102 cases," said Wiku in a virtual press conference, Thursday, August 26.

Wiku said that the decline in COVID-19 cases had occurred for five consecutive weeks from the peak of cases. This, said Wiku, is good news that needs to be maintained and further improved.

But unfortunately, Wiku said the number of people who were tested or tested for COVID-19 had also decreased. Wiku said that testing numbers should continue to be increased even though cases have decreased.

"Unfortunately, the highest number was reached on July 18 with 1,146,793 people being examined, while this week it was 688,906," said Wiku.

Even so, the number of tests this week is still three times higher than the number of people tested before the spike in cases.

"On May 16, there were only 203,510 people. This indicates that the number of testing in Indonesia is still being improved," said Wiku.

"The challenge is how to keep this test increase at a stable amount so that there is no significant and consecutive decline, especially testing in the priority group," he continued.