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Government expects case surge in Jakarta to ease soon
Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said the government expected daily confirmed cases in Jakarta to reach a peak this week.
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Medical workers prepare to take swab samples from people at a drive-thru COVID-19 test station in Jakarta on Feb. 7. (Reuters/Willy Kurniawan)
T
he current surge of COVID-19 cases in Jakarta is expected to subside this week, which would mark the end of a third coronavirus wave that was fueled by the highly transmissible Omicron variant in the capital city, the government has claimed, although daily new cases continue to soar nationally.
Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said the government expected daily confirmed cases in Jakarta to reach their peak this week, but the situation in other provinces could be different.
“In Jakarta, based on our observation, it is likely that [COVID-19 cases] will reach their peak this week before they start coming down,” said Budi in a press briefing on Monday.
He added that West Java, Banten and Bali could also see a peak in infections soon, while cases will likely continue to increase in East Java, Central Java, Yogyakarta and other provinces outside Java.
Budi’s statement was slightly more conservative than that of Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister Luhut Pandjaitan, who is in charge of the government’s COVID-19 response in Java and Bali. Luhut said key indicators in Jakarta had shown that the capital had passed the peak of the current wave.
"The good news is the wave of COVID-19 transmission in Jakarta appears to have peaked. Daily cases, active cases and hospitalizations have all been decreasing [in the last few days]. In general, the rate of infections has slowed down in Java and Bali, although it is rising in other islands," Luhut said in the same briefing.
Key COVID-19 indicators
