Ministry Of Health: Hospital Occupancy Is Maintained Even Though Daily Cases Exceed Delta

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JAKARTA - The Ministry of Health noted that the current daily cases have exceeded the peak addition during the Delta variant, which is 59,384 cases per day. The Ministry of Health said that the isolation beds and the COVID-19 ICU at the hospital were still maintained.

The capacity of beds and isolation rooms is in the range of 37 percent, unchanged from Friday, February 18. That capacity can still be increased to 150,000 isolation beds and ICU if needed.

"Although currently, the number of patients being treated at the hospital is minimal, the government must continue to make maximum efforts to maintain the resilience of public health services amid the increase in daily confirmation cases due to the spread of the Omicron variant in Indonesia," explained the Spokesperson for COVID-19 Vaccination at the Ministry of Health, Siti Nadia Tarmizi, as reported by Antara, Saturday, February 19.

Not only strengthening health services, but the government also continues to increase testing, tracing, and treatment to suppress the spread of COVID-19, which is dominated by Omicron, with a faster transmission nature than the previous variant.

As of Friday, testing was carried out on 520,663 specimens, an increase from Thursday, February 17 with 500,940 specimens.

"By examining these specimens, we can participate in tracing close contacts or tracing so as to contain the rate of transmission. We hope that the public is willing to carry out testing, especially for close contacts, so that we can end this pandemic together," said Nadia.

The government also continues to push the rate of vaccination with as of February 19, 2022, the first dose of vaccination has reached 91.01 percent of the target of 208,265,720 people. While the second dose reached 67.2 percent.

The government has also provided remote doctor consultation services or telemedicine for asymptomatic or mild symptomatic patients undergoing self-isolation. After that, the patient will also get free medicine delivered to the patient's home.

Other strengthening efforts continue to be carried out by the government to maintain the ability of health services, one of which is to meet oxygen needs.

It has been confirmed that the ten provinces with the highest transmissions already have oxygen reserves that can last more than 48 hours. In addition, the number of oxygen concentrators in the ten provinces also reached 10,326, and oxygen generators reached 65.

"The most effective way to support the current government is to accelerate full-dose vaccination and strengthen health protocols, especially when in public spaces," said Nadia.