Task Force Regrets That Indonesia's COVID-19 Death Rate Is Higher Than The World's

ILLUSTRATION/DOC Instagram aniesbaswedan

JAKARTA - Spokesperson for the COVID-19 Task Force, Wiku Adisasmito, said that the number of COVID-19 deaths in Indonesia was still quite high.

In fact, the death rate of COVID-19 cases in Indonesia is currently 3.2 percent. This figure is higher than the global COVID-19 death rate of 2.09 percent.

"The high number of deaths in Indonesia has caused Indonesia's rise to be the ninth highest cumulative death toll in the world", said Wiku on the Presidential Secretariat's Youtube video, Tuesday, August 24.

Wiku said, as of August 22, the number of weekly deaths in Indonesia was 8,784 cases, or still more than 1000 deaths per day.

Almost all provinces are still experiencing an increase in the number of COVID-19 deaths. The decline in the COVID-19 death rate this week was only in Central Kalimantan Province, which fell 0.03 percent.

Meanwhile, of the 33 provinces that experienced an increase in death rates, the highest was in Central Java with an increase of 0.32 percent, Lampung 0.3 percent, Gorontalo 0.3 percent, Bali 0.23 percent, and Bengkulu increased 0.17 percent.

"This shows that in general, the problem of national deaths due to COVID-19 is still an unresolved challenge", said Wiku.

In fact, said Wiku, this is an unusual situation. This is because the number of COVID-19 cases has increased. Usually, if the recovery of COVID-19 increases, the number of deaths will decrease and vice versa.

However, what is currently happening is that both indicators have increased. According to Wiku, the increase in deaths during recovery also experienced an increase, this could be because the strengthening of health facilities and centralized isolation were not balanced with maximum utilization.

"It could be that there are residents who are infected with COVID-19 who are not treated quickly or are still self-isolating in inadequate circumstances", explained Wiku.

"For this reason, it is requested that local governments, which are still experiencing a high increase in mortality, can immediately make repairs", he added.