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Jokowi sticks to his guns as daily COVID-19 cases soar past 15,000
Indonesia recorded a record-breaking number of new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, just as President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo defended his use of micro-scale public activity restrictions (PPKM Mikro) nationwide.
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A motorist passes an alley in South Gandaria subdistrict, Cilandak district, South Jakarta on June 21. A neighborhood in the subdistrict was put under local lockdown due to a high number of COVID-19 cases confirmed in the area. (Antara/Sigid Kurniawan)
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ndonesia has posted another record-breaking day after the number of new COVID-19 cases surpassed 15,000, just hours after President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo spoke up for the first time since the second wave of infections began to sweep through the country.
Health authorities reported 15,308 new cases on Wednesday, the highest daily rise since the pandemic hit the country last year. Just two days prior, recorded 2.033 million cases.
Read also: Indonesia passes 2 million cases amid record daily rise
The country also recorded 303 deaths and a positivity rate of 49.07 percent – which is the percentage of people tested found to be infected. The numbers are widely regarded as a conservative estimate because of severely inadequate testing and tracing outside of the capital.
The national COVID-19 task force reported a total death toll of 55,594, with more than 900 people dying in the past three days alone.
Earlier that day, amid increasing pressure to impose a stricter lockdown policy to anticipate the spread of a more contagious mutation of the virus, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo insisted that the current micro-scale public activity restrictions (PPKM Mikro) were still the best available option.
Jokowi said the government had taken into account the country’s economic, social and political conditions, as well as the experiences of other countries, in determining that the PPKM Mikro would be able to limit public mobility while preventing a total economic shutdown.
