Dissecting Data On How Severe Indonesia's COVID-19 Cases Are Compared To Five ASEAN Countries

JAKARTA - The number of COVID-19 cases in Indonesia is still increasing every day. Likewise with the death rate. The question is, how severe are the COVID-19 cases in Indonesia compared to five ASEAN countries?

Professor of the Faculty of Public Health, University of Indonesia Hasbullah Thabrany dissects the data to reveal how severe the COVID-19 case in Indonesia is. In general, if you look at the data on the curves of COVID-19 cases per day, Hasbullah calls the curve sloping.

This may be due to two factors. Because our health facilities are not good, the people are wayward.

Hasbullah - in the Online Discussion of the UI International Relations Department

To see further how bad the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia is, there are several data that can be dissected. These include looking at the number of people who have been tested, the number of positive cases per day, the death rate, and the death rate.

First, Hasbullah saw a comparison of the percentage of PCR tests in Indonesia with several ASEAN countries. In Indonesia, it appears that the PCR test is still small compared to other ASEAN countries, namely 39,422 based on April 20 data.

When compared to neighboring countries such as Malaysia, for example, the number is still outnumbered by 100,794. Meanwhile, Thailand is also almost the same as Malaysia with 100,498, and the most in Vietnam with 206,253.

Therefore, the small number of cases in Indonesia is questionable. "The number of Indonesian cases is small because people are immune or are they not detected?" Hasbullah said.

Compares per 1 million population

Because the population of ASEAN countries is different, Hasbullah said, to compare cases in Indonesia with other countries the best is the case data per one million population.

If you look at the data on the number of incidents or cases as of April 20, between zero and 1,200 cases per one million population, Indonesia is indeed the least visible among the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. The five countries are all in the numbers below 200. Meanwhile, the highest is Singapore, which touches one thousand.

"Indonesia is actually very small. The number of cases in Indonesia and Singapore is not that different. But because Singapore's population is small, the rate of cases per one million people in Singapore is higher. This means that the risk of getting COVID-19 in Singapore is actually much higher. than in Indonesia. "

Then, we look at the mortality rate per million population. From the data as of April 20, 2020, it can be seen that Indonesia's death rate is quite high, namely two deaths out of one million population. Meanwhile, the Philippines had four deaths, Singapore (2), Malaysia (3), Thailand recorded a ratio of 0.5 deaths, and Vietnam had zero deaths.

"Indeed, looking at this data, the existing data shows that Indonesia's death rate is still small, but is this final?" Of course not. We still have to see the ratio of how many people die and who are healed. With that we can find out what the ratio is.

So, according to data up to April 19, between those who died and those who recovered in Indonesia, it turns out that the mortality rate is very high compared to five other countries in ASEAN.

"This shows the problem of 'severity' of the seriousness of a disease that causes relatively high mortality in Indonesia," said Hasbullah.