Anticipating A Spike In Cases Due To Omicron, The Government Prepares Beds For Oxygen Concentrators

Minister of Health Budi Gunadi Sadikin/DOK Ministry of Health

JAKARTA - Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said the government had anticipated a surge in cases of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 by doing a number of things. Including, preparing hundreds of thousands of beds to treat patients and provide oxygen supply.

"The number of beds in Indonesia is around 400 thousand, 30 percent or 120 thousand we dedicate to COVID (patients, red) which are now occupied by around 2,400-2,500. So there are still more than 110 thousand rooms," Budi said in a press conference broadcast on the Presidential Secretariat's YouTube, Monday, January 3.

The government also provides oxygen to deal with a surge in cases due to the Omicron variant. This effort, he said, learned from the scarcity of oxygen when the new Delta variant emerged in the country.

At that time, continued Budi, oxygen demand had jumped from 700 tons per day to 2,200 tons per day. So, currently, the government has prepared tens of thousands of oxygen concentrators.

"What we have done, after the peak of last July, we have brought in 16,000 oxygen concentrators which we have sent to all hospitals throughout Indonesia, especially those with difficult access to oxygen," said the former Deputy Minister of SOEs.

"This is equivalent to 800 tons per day. (So later, red) just plugged in the electricity, he can release oxygen (then, red) we inhale," added Budi.

Furthermore, the government has also received and is currently installing 70 percent oxygen generators. "This is a large amount of oxygen that can supply a hospital and can also make tube fillers. We have prepared that," he explained.

The next step, the government has prepared drugs. One of them, the antiviral drug Molnupiravir, which has been imported.

Budi said, the drug is already there but is still being stored. "If something goes wrong, we have prepared the medicine because it has been proven to reduce the rate of admission to the hospital for people affected by COVID, whose saturation is still above 94 percent," he said.

The Minister of Health explained that currently there are 152 cases of the Omicron variant in the country. This figure puts Indonesia at number 40.

The countries most exposed to Omicron are Britain, Denmark and America. "Those are all above 20 thousand (cases, ed)," he said.

Meanwhile, South Africa has now decreased to 1,800 cases. Then in Southeast Asia, Singapore recorded 1,600 positive cases of the Omicron variant; Thailand 1,500 cases.

"Indonesia is in position 40, the number as of today is 152, there are 16 additions compared to two days ago and all of them come from foreign travelers," he concluded.