DKI Jakarta Is Still The Biggest Contributor To The Spread Of COVID-19 In Indonesia, 193 Cases On April 16, 2022

A child attends a vaccination held by the police in Banda Aceh, Monday (28/3/2022). (ANTARA/Bidhumas Polda Aceh)

JAKARTA - The Task Force for Handling COVID-19 stated that the number of positive cases had increased by 602 with DKI Jakarta being the largest contributor, namely 193 so that there were a total of 6,039,266 cases in Indonesia.

Based on data obtained by ANTARA in Jakarta on Saturday, the next regions that contributed the most cases were West Java with 99 cases, Banten with 61 cases, Central Java with 53 cases and East Java with 46 cases.

The addition of the positive confirmed cases was also followed by the increasing number of deaths. On Saturday, the number of deaths increased by 24 from the previous day, bringing the total to 155,844.

On the other hand, active cases fell by 2,190 cases. As a result, there are now 60,475 active cases remaining.

Meanwhile, there were 5,822,947 cases of recovery, after experiencing an addition of 2,768. The regions that contributed to the most cases of recovery were DKI Jakarta with 599 patients, Central Java with 567 patients, West Java with 394 patients, DI Yogyakarta with 260 patients and Banten with 191 patients.

The Task Force also noted that 2,555 people had become COVID-19 suspects. Meanwhile, 98,459 specimens have been examined today.

Griffith University Australia epidemiologist Dicky Budiman stressed that a virus would not be affected by the declaration of a change in status from pandemic to endemic.

Dicky said that entering the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the level of community saturation will be getting stronger even at the state level. Many countries have declared themselves to have entered an endemic period.

Even though the virus will not be affected by the endemic status because even though the country is truly endemic, the virus will continue to exist and develop in society even though cases tend to be more controlled and in accordance with biological laws.

This needs attention because even though a country enters an endemic, the conditions are still as dangerous as the impact that continues to be given to health facilities such as increased mortality.

Plus in a country itself, there are several areas that may have entered an endemic, some have entered an epidemic or sporadic. This is because each region experiences a different trend of COVID-19 cases.

Therefore, regardless of the status of the pandemic and the condition of a country, Dicky asked everyone not to ignore vaccinations or follow health protocols.

"If there is no COVID-19 vaccination or adequate vaccination or immunity coverage, any variant can have a large impact on death and that is what happened in Hong Kong when the elderly who had comorbidities did not want to be vaccinated and ended up fatally," he said.