Meanwhile, those who are carrying the virus but without symptoms, are also strongly recommended to self-isolate as part of the effort to keep hospitals from running out of beds for COVID-19 patients needing further treatment.

The Indonesian Hospital Association’s (Persi) health security service head, Daniel Wibowo, said the country would expect a spike in cases after the holidays and he said COVID-19 asymptomatic carriers should self-isolate to prevent hospitals filling up.

“Not everyone with COVID-19 needs to be treated at the hospital, as long as they manage to self-isolate. We also see a possibility of sending recovering COVID-19 patients to a self-isolation facility to make room for other patients,” Daniel said on Sunday, kompas.id reported.

He went on to say that most isolation facilities at hospitals in Jakarta had begun to run out of beds, therefore persuading carriers to self-isolate was necessary.

To avoid misunderstandings over the bed-capacity limitations, the association has been working together with hospitals to educate the public about the situation.

Apart from that, the Health Ministry has also committed to increasing hospital capacity by recruiting more nurses and volunteer doctors as well as providing medicines and other needed facilities for the COVID-19 control efforts.

On Friday, newly appointed Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said the government predicted a 20-40 percent increase in confirmed COVID-19 cases after the year-end holidays.

Read also: Indonesia prepared to add hospital rooms in case of COVID-19 infection surge

As a precaution, the ministry is to add more beds in regional general hospitals, private hospitals and the ministry’s hospitals. Furthermore, it will also add more COVID-19 referral hospitals, restructure the referral system and set up emergency hospitals.

In addressing the nurse shortage, the Health Ministry has also coordinated with the Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital director in Jakarta to gather health workers in a volunteer-style recruitment, which is considered effective in resolving the issue.

As of Monday, Indonesia saw a cumulative total of over 700,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases, including more than 580,000 recoveries and at least 21,000 fatalities.

Previously, the Jakarta Health Agency planned to add more COVID-19 referral hospitals in the capital city.

The agency’s disease control and prevention unit head, Dwi Oktavia, said the selected hospitals would have to make several preparations beforehand, such as designing a zoning system to separate COVID-19 patients from other patients.

“The hospitals have to arrange a flow system for both the medical personnel as well as the patients. There needs to be another facility for COVID-19 patients to separate them from the regular ones,” said Dwi Oktavia as quoted by kompas.com on Saturday.

Aside from preparing new facilities, the selected hospitals also have to provide health workers specialized in providing care for COVID-19 patients.

Dwi emphasized that medical personnel who were appointed to treat infected patients were not allowed to treat other patients.

As of now, there are 98 COVID-19 referral hospitals in Jakarta, 90 of which were appointed by the governor through a gubernatorial decree, eight of which were selected by the Health Ministry. (nkn)