Anies' deputy Ahmad Riza Patria was quoted by kompas.com as saying that the governor "already coordinated with the central government, hopefully they can take over to control the situation".

Riza said he expected that the central government would be able to improve health facilities in Greater Jakarta by adding more hospital beds, suggesting that the central government should take over the coordination for COVID-19 control in each region, especially when health facilities are overwhelmed.

In an Instagram post on Wednesday, the Jakarta administration said that its hospitals, as of Jan. 17, had only 13 percent of beds -- or about 1,011 isolation beds and 192 intensive care beds -- free to accommodate COVID-19 patients. It said that 24 percent of the total 8,890 isolation and intensive care beds were filled by patients from Tangerang -- which is under the Banten administration -- and Bogor, Depok and Bekasi -- three cities under West Java’s jurisdiction. The remaining 63 percent of beds were occupied by Jakarta patients.

Jakarta last week returned to the so-called large-scale social restrictions (PSBB) -- in place until Jan. 25 -- to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients and staff from being stretched thin.

But even then, Jakarta’s daily cases continue to soar, hitting an all-time record high of 3,786 new cases on Wednesday to bring the total cumulative tally to 236,075 cases. This broke the daily highs Jakarta recorded in the past couple of weeks, including the daily record of 2,959 new cases logged on Jan. 8, a day before Anies announced the return to full PSBB.

Jakarta accounts for a significant proportion of daily new cases in the country. The city currently has 21,224 active cases and has had 3,868 deaths.

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