Indonesia Reaches Up To 620 Percent Increase In Positive Cases Of COVID-19 In 28 Days

Coordinator of the Expert Team and Government Spokesperson for Handling COVID-19 Wiku Adisasmito/IST

JAKARTA - The Coordinator of the Expert Team and Government Spokesperson for Handling COVID-19, Wiku Adisasmito, reported that Indonesia had achieved a 620 percent increase in positive cases.

Wiku said the increase in positive cases of COVID-19 nationally, as of June 28, 2022, was also followed by an increase at the global level by a number of countries, after maintaining a long decline in cases.

He said developments in each country may vary due to the characteristics and patterns of controlling COVID-19 in that country.

"Ordered by the percentage increase in the highest weekly positive cases, Indonesia has the most significant increase, which is up 620 percent in 28 days," Wiku said as quoted by Antara, Friday, July 1.

The figure was followed by Bangladesh rising 500 percent in 22 days, Britain up 380 percent in 23 days, Italy up 241 percent in 25 days, Germany 209 percent in 22 days, Singapore up 116 percent in 18 days, Malaysia up 49 percent in 19 days. day and the United States was up 14 percent in 8 days.

"This is an important concern, because with the increasing number of cases in these countries, it means that we need to be vigilant again and this proves that COVID-19 still exists," said Wiku.

Wiku said that in Indonesia alone, for 2 consecutive days, daily cases continued to be above 2,000 cases. Even though this number is not large when compared to the number at the peak of various cases that have been passed, it still needs to be suppressed immediately, so that it does not increase, especially positive cases in Indonesia.

Reflecting on the chart of cases per month in 2021 in the same month as now, namely May to June, there was an increase of more than 200,000 cases, from 153,000 to 356,000 cases over two months. This figure peaked in July 2021 for a total addition of more than 1 million cases during July 2021.

Wiku said it was important to remember last year because this only decreased after three months. This increase in cases occurred after Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, and was also strengthened by the school holiday period.

Wiku said that this year the good news is that the number in the same month period is much lower than last year.

If last year it reached 350 cases in one month, this year in June it was only 31,000 monthly cases.

"On the one hand, the low number compared to last year shows that we are increasingly resilient and continue to improve the situation in a better direction. But on the other hand we have to be vigilant, because there was an increase of more than 23,000 cases in one month, indicating that "The rate of transmission in the community is increasingly widespread, plus last year, last year, July was the peak of the highest cases of more than one million cases in one month," said Wiku.

According to him, this needs to be watched out for because this is a school holiday period and tends to increase people's mobility to tourist spots. In addition, community activities of course also increase ahead of Eid al-Adha 1443 H.

"I'm not tired of reminding that masks are still very important to protect us from the COVID-19 virus. This case could have happened because we started to be careless in complying with health protocols because we were complacent with controlled conditions," said Wiku.

Wiku invites the public to continue to carry out health protocols and be truly disciplined in taking care of themselves, their families and their living environment so they don't become new clusters of COVID-19 transmission.

Then the health protocol is the key to the success of reducing cases and restoring current community activities. The success that has been achieved so far is important to maintain and continue to be pursued so that it can last as long as possible.