New COVID-19 Cases Skyrocket In A Week, This Is Why

Spokesperson for the Task Force for Handling COVID-19 Wiku Adisasmito (Photo: Public Relations of BNPB)

JAKARTA - In one week, the number of new cases of COVID-19 per day has always been more than 4,000. There were 4,176 new cases on Monday, September 21, then 4,071 on Tuesday, 4,465 on Wednesday, and 4,634 cases today.

Spokesperson for the Task Force for Handling COVID-19, Wiku Adisasmito, said the increase in cases nationwide this week contributed 8.4 percent.

"The highest number of cases came from DKI Jakarta, East Java, Central Java, West Java, and South Sulawesi," Wiku said in the Presidential Secretariat Youtube broadcast, Thursday, September 24.

Then, the highest case contributors from the highest case increase this week were West Java, Banten, South Sulawesi and Papua provinces.

Wiku said, the increase in cases could occur due to several things. First, the community is not yet disciplined in implementing health protocols.

This, said Wiku, was exacerbated by the second factor, namely the behavior of the people who were still crowded around, thus increasing the risk of transmission.

"As time goes by, we see that people are increasingly negligent in ignoring health protocols. People seem to have no empathy even though they have witnessed so many victims who appear every day to become positive cases of COVID-19," explained Wiku.

Then, Wiku saw that there were still people who were afraid to do a swab test when they already had symptoms of being infected with COVID-19.

Wiku sees a fear of the potentially high costs of treatment if he is positive for COVID-19. Therefore, Wiku appealed to the public not to look negatively on those who are positive for COVID-19.

"This disease is not an embarrassing disease. Whoever is affected by COVID-19 must be helped and treated. There is no need to worry about the cost of treatment because it is entirely borne by the government," said Wiku.