Thankfully, The Daily Record Of COVID-19 Cases Is Not As High As The Government's Predictions

Minister of Health Budi Gunadi Sadikin (Photo: Screenshot of the Presidential Secretariat Youtube)

JAKARTA - Health Minister, Budi Gunadi Sadikin, said that currently, the number of COVID-19 cases was starting to decline. When cases jumped some time ago, the highest daily cases did not reach the figures predicted by the government.

It is known, when cases began to increase a month ago, the government prepared a scenario for handling the pandemic until the daily cases reached 70,000 per day.

"The worst-case scenario, we previously estimated 70 thousand additional cases per day, until now we see we are grateful that it happened at 57,000 per day", said Budi in the Presidential Secretariat's Youtube show, Monday, August 2.

In fact, Budi said the daily case record, which was still below the predicted figure, occurred when the government had increased the number of testing or examination of specimens every day.

"That's with an extraordinary increase in testing. What we used to do on average was 60 thousand to 70 thousand tests (per day), now it's up to 200 thousand, even for testing specimens it has almost 300 thousand per day", said Budi.

In the future, Budi admitted that his party will continue to increase the number of testing gradually. This is because President Joko Widodo is targeting 400,000 specimens to be examined per day.

This increase in the number of testing, said Budi, was carried out so that the government could really detect the spread of COVID-19 in the community. Thus, the handling of cases is handled more quickly.

"We can immediately deal with it if someone has been infected. We can isolate it so it doesn't spread, in an isolated place that has been built, and we will treat the sick quickly to the hospital so it's not fatal. If we treat this disease quickly and appropriately, should be able to handle it", he concluded.