Task Force: Weekly COVID-19 Positive Cases Increase 15 Times

ILLUSTRATION BETWEEN

JAKARTA - Spokesperson for the COVID-19 Task Force, Prof. Wiku Adisasmito, said the weekly positive cases of COVID-19 in Indonesia had increased by 15 times in the last two months.

"Weekly positive cases this week were recorded at more than 38,000, which is very high compared to the beginning of June 2022, which was only 2,000 cases," he said when delivering a press statement on the Development of COVID-19 Handling as reported by ANTARA, Thursday, August 4.

He said the increase in positive cases was accompanied by an increase in death cases, although not significantly compared to the increase in positive cases.

In the last week there were 91 cases of death, a sharp increase compared to the previous week which was around 40 deaths. Even in recent days, the death toll touched more than 20 deaths in a day.

The five provinces that contributed the highest weekly positive cases shifted from the previous week. This week, South Kalimantan occupied the five provinces with the highest number of 610 cases, becoming fifth after DKI with 19,000 cases, West Java with 7,000 cases, Banten with 4,000 cases and East Java with 2,000 cases.

DKI became the province that contributed to the highest number of deaths in a month reaching 29 people, followed by West Java with 11 deaths and the remaining less than seven deaths.

"The number of occupancy rates for patient care beds in hospitals is starting to increase. DKI is the highest at 12.93 percent, South Kalimantan is 12.79 percent and Banten is 11.85 percent," he said.

Wiku said the rate of COVID-19 cases in Indonesia was relatively lower when compared to four neighboring countries, namely Japan, South Korea, Australia and Singapore.

As of July 31, 2022, the number of cases in Japan has reached more than one million cases, South Korea has more than 500 thousand cases, Australia has almost 300 thousand cases and Singapore has reached 54 thousand cases in a week.

He reminded the public to apply health protocols and access vaccination services to provide protection against the risk of falling ill due to COVID-19.