Seven out of 27 provinces outside Java and Bali -- where overall hospital capacity is not even half of Java's -- reported hospital bed occupancy rates above 70 percent on Wednesday, generally increasing in recent weeks. This includes East Kalimantan, Riau Islands, Lampung and South Sumatra, which generally have also seen their daily cases growing since early this month, before the stricter curbs were first extended to some regions outside Java.

While eight other provinces outside Java recorded COVID-19 bed occupancy rates of between 60 and 70 percent.

“In the past 10 days, it has become more and more difficult to find COVID-19 referral [hospitals] because they are full,” a doctor at a community health center (Puskesmas) in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan who refused to be named, told The Jakarta Post.

“Some of these hospitals, which in the past never refused patients, now even put up ‘ER closed’ signs due to high patient load.”

The doctor said she knew of some young patients with no comorbidities whose condition had deteriorated in home isolation and died. She also said about 50 percent of the tests done at her Puskesmas in the past 10 days had come back positive.

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