Task Force: Indonesia's COVID-19 Positive Cases Drop Despite High Mobility

Coordinator of the Expert Team and Government Spokesperson for Handling COVID-19 Prof. Wiku Adisasmito/SPECIAL DOC

JAKARTA - Coordinator of the Expert Team and Government Spokesperson for Handling COVID-19 Prof. Wiku Adisasmito conveyed that the trend of daily positive cases of COVID-19 in Indonesia has decreased, despite the high mobility of the people.

"Mobility in Indonesia, especially the retail and recreation sectors, has continued to show an increase since last March until now. And this increase was not followed by an increase in daily cases," he said, quoted by Antara, Wednesday, May 19.

This means, he continued, the transmission of positive cases of COVID-19 in Indonesia can be suppressed in the community, even though mobility is currently the highest during the pandemic.

"This is good news that is important to keep going forward," he continued.

If we look at the case data at the national level, Wiku said that Indonesia still continues to show improvements in indicators of active cases and cures. Meanwhile, the mortality indicator is still at the same rate.

"The death rate is still above the world average at a time when cases are active and cures have been better than the world," he said.

Based on data from the COVID-19 Handling Task Force, Wiku explained, active cases at the national level showed a downward trend to 0.08 percent in the last week where this figure was around four percent lower than the world average.

When viewed from the number of active national cases on May 8, Wiku said, there were 6,000 people with COVID-19 and as of May 15 it had fallen to around 4,700 people.

While the COVID-19 recovery rate, he said, there was also an improvement with the number of recovered people at the national level this week increasing.

It was recorded that around 3,600 people recovered, with a recovery percentage of 97.34 percent compared to the world.

"Indonesia's recovery percentage is still around three percent above the world average," he said.

Regarding deaths, Wiku said the percentage and number of deaths in Indonesia tended to remain the same compared to the previous week, which was 2.59 percent.

Meanwhile, the average number of people who died in the last three months has decreased and currently stands at 13 cases on average.

"Of course we can't turn back time to restore the lives of our loved ones, but we can still prevent transmission from happening and death can be avoided through our awareness to carry out health protocols and testing," said Wiku.