It's Been 2 Months, The COVID-19 Death Rate In Indonesia Continues To Be Higher Than The World Figure

ILLUSTRATION/UNSPLASH

AKARTA - Spokesperson for the COVID-19 Task Force, Wiku Adisasmito, regretted the high percentage of deaths from COVID-19 cases in Indonesia.

Indonesia recorded 133,023 deaths during the pandemic. In fact, Indonesia's death rate is higher than the world's death rate and this condition has been going on for two months.

"Unfortunately, the percentage of deaths in Indonesia has consistently been above the world's death percentage since July 2020. As of August 29, Indonesia's death percentage stood at 3.24 percent, while the world was at 2.08 percent," said Wiku in a virtual press conference, Tuesday, August 31st.

Wiku mentioned 10 provinces that contributed the most to COVID-19 deaths over the past week. Among them are East Java with 1,214 COVID-19 deaths, West Java with 922 deaths, Central Java with 530 deaths, and Bali with 329 deaths.

Furthermore, North Sumatra 222 deaths, East Kalimantan 213 deaths, Yogyakarta Special Region 206 deaths, Riau 193 deaths, Lampung 179 deaths, and South Kalimantan 150 deaths.

"These ten provinces contributed 75 percent of the total national deaths this week," said Wiku.

Wiku said that 9 out of 10 provinces with the highest death rates were also included in the provinces with the most active cases in the past week, as well as the highest recovery rates.

This condition, he said, shows that the quality of health services in these provinces has been improved, but deaths still cannot be suppressed. "This can happen because the handling of residents affected by COVID-19 is not carried out swiftly and quickly or because there are still residents who are self-isolating," said Wiku.

"In addition, the focus of handling COVID-19 is still downstream, namely the service of COVID-19 patients. Then, it has not been maximized at the upstream level, namely prevention and disciplinary supervision of health protocols," he continued.

For this reason, Wiku asked all regional heads from the 10 provinces mentioned to strictly monitor the implementation of the COVID-19 monitoring post function in their respective working areas.

"Make sure residents affected by COVID-19 use a centralized isolation area and do not self-isolate so that their condition can be monitored, so as to minimize the risk of death," he concluded.