COVID-19 Cases In Several Regions Increase, Minister Of Health Budi Will Apply Handling Like In Java

Minister of Health Budi Gunadi Sadikin/Antara

JAKARTA - Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said the number of COVID-19 cases in several areas outside Java was increasing when cases in Java began to decline.

Therefore, the steps taken to reduce cases outside Java are replicating or imitating the control of COVID-19 cases in Java over the past month.

"We still see that some areas have not yet dropped and there is an increase (of cases) especially for areas outside Java. Based on the experience in Java, we will immediately replicate it outside Java", Budi said in a YouTube video broadcast by the Presidential Secretariat's channel, Monday, August 2.

He explained that efforts to control the spread of COVID-19 in Java began with increasing case detection with massive testing.

When many cases are detected, automatically the need for treatment beds such as isolation and ICU at COVID-19 referral hospitals increases. Therefore, the local government has also converted a number of beds in hospitals to be special for COVID-19.

"If there are people we have to improve the centralized isolation area so that they can be isolated quickly, we don't infect their families, we will convert hospital rooms into COVID-19 rooms", said Budi.

In addition, each region will also form an Oxygen Task Force which regulates the increase in the need for oxygen cylinders for patients. This is to prevent the scarcity of oxygen stocks such as in Java during the spike in cases.

"So, friends in provinces outside Java are also better prepared to identify if there is a hospital that lacks oxygen and how it is distributed, we will also prepare the medicines", he explained.