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Indonesia sees three days of record-high cases
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or the third day in a row, Indonesia has logged a record daily number of new COVID-19 cases, with the Health Ministry reporting 4,823 new infections on Friday over the previous 24 hours.
The country’s daily virus count first topped 4,000 cases on Sept. 19, before continuously climbing to 4,465 cases on Wednesday and 4,634 cases on Thursday.
Indonesia's official nationwide COVID-19 tally reached 266,845 on Friday, including 196,196 recoveries and 10,218 deaths, making it the country with the second-highest number of recorded coronavirus cases in Southeast Asia – just below the Philippines – and the highest in fatalities among its ASEAN peers.
There are currently 60,431 active cases in the country, and the pandemic has reached 494 out of the 514 municipalities and regencies in the nation.
Jakarta remains the worst-hit province in the country with 67,902 cases and 1,661 deaths, followed by East Java with 42,391 cases and 3,084 deaths.
Other hard-hit provinces include Central Java with 21,004 cases, West Java with 20,131 cases, South Sulawesi with 14,982 cases and South Kalimantan with 10,080.
Authorities have attributed the spike in virus transmission to the public’s lack of compliance with health protocols, such as not maintaining a safe distance from others and failing to wear masks in public.
The national COVID-19 task force previously warned that the country's health system could soon collapse if the public continued to ignore coronavirus prevention protocols.
As of Friday, Indonesia had tested more than 1.86 million people and more than 3.12 million samples. There are currently 112,082 suspected cases nationwide.
The continuing spike in new infections has come amid a suspected internal rift within the national COVID-19 task force, a special team responsible for addressing the pandemic.
Akmal Taher has stepped down from his position as head of the health division of the national COVID-19 task force, citing what he said were the task force’s insufficient efforts to address the COVID-19 crisis. He submitted his resignation letter to COVID-19 task force chair Doni Monardo on Thursday evening.
“Yes, I delivered the letter [on Thursday] night, but I had already talked about my plans to resign,” he said, as quoted by tempo.co on Friday.
Akmal, a urologist and a professor at the University of Indonesia’s Faculty of Medicine, said the key to successfully handling the pandemic was rigorous testing, tracing and treatment.
However, he said testing and contact-tracing measures had not been optimally implemented, particularly in the effort to reduce the COVID-19 death rate in nine provinces – a task that President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo recently gave to Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister Luhut Panjaitan.
"I think I can fulfill my role carrying out the measures I believe in – namely testing, tracing and treatment – in another place," Akmal said.
In addition to the health division, the COVID-19 task force consists of a behavioral changes division, a technology and information division and a public communication division.
Jokowi established the task force in July under the Committee for COVID-19 Handling and National Economic Recovery. (aly)
