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Jakarta on ‘right track’ in COVID-19 handling, Anies says, despite rising numbers
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Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan (center) greets officials after leading a ceremony to commemorate Jakarta's 493rd anniversary at City Hall in Central Jakarta on June 22. (Antara/Indrianto Eko Suwarso)
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akarta Governor Anies Baswedan has claimed that the administration in doing well in tackling COVID-19 in the capital city, despite a spike in new confirmed cases.
“We are now, in September, seeing a rise in pandemic numbers [...]. Our battle with COVID-19 will not be over within the coming weeks, but we are on the right track,” Anies said on Friday in his address to the Family Welfare Movement (PKK) event.
The governor said the key to handling the epidemic was mass testing and tracing, which he claimed the capital had been aggressively conducting with 50,000 COVID-19 tests a week. The figure is above the World Health Organization’s recommendation for testing at least one person out of 1,000 per week.
He added that, with the high number of tests, the capital had discovered more infected people that could be immediately subjected to hospital care or self-isolation.
The early detection and care, Anies claimed, had resulted in a relatively low fatality rate of 2.9 percent, below the national and global average of around 5.1 percent and 3.4 percent respectively.
“Alhamdulillah [thank God], Jakarta has conducted testing, tracing and treatment well. Now, we urge the residents to wear masks, keep a social distance and wash their hands regularly,” Anies said.
COVID-19 cases in Jakarta, the epicenter of the outbreak in Indonesia, have recently shown an uptrend, with the Health Ministry announcing a record-high 1,406 daily new cases on Thursday. As of Friday, the capital has recorded 44,280 confirmed infections with 1,252 fatalities and 33,260 recoveries.
The spike had pushed the capital’s positivity rate to 12.5 percent, more than twofold the WHO recommendation of a 5 percent positivity rate as the basis for relaxing social restrictions.
