JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) – Confirmed coronavirus infections in Indonesia since the pandemic began reached 1 million on Tuesday, and hospitals in some affected areas have been close to capacity.
Indonesia’s Ministry of Health announced that new daily infections increased by 13,094 on Tuesday, bringing the country’s total to 1,012,350, the highest in Southeast Asia. The total number of deaths reached 28,468.
The landmark comes just weeks after the Indonesian launched a massive campaign to inoculate two-thirds of the country’s 270 million people, with President Joko Widodo receiving the first shot of a vaccine made in China. Health agencies, the military, the police, teachers and other at-risk populations are prioritized for the vaccine in the fourth most populous country in the world.
Officials said Indonesia will require almost 427 million doses, given the estimated 15% of doses that can be wasted during the distribution process in the vast nation of more than 17,000 islands, where transport and infrastructure are limited in places.
Jakarta continues to be the worst-hit city in Indonesia, confirming more than 254,000 cases since Tuesday, including 4,077 deaths. Only 8.5% of the city’s total of 8,066 hospital beds have been left for new patients since Tuesday, while ventilator beds have been filled.
Other provinces in the country’s most densely populated island of Java, such as West Java, East Java and Yogyakarta, have also seen high bed occupancy rates of up to 95% in recent weeks. Even in the neighboring province of Jakarta Banten, occupancy rates reached 100% last week.
Data from the Ministry of Health showed that the capacity of the hospital at the national level was about 70%.
Abdul Kadir, the director general of health services at the ministry, called the situation “serious”.
The government has issued a circular asking private hospital owners across the country to allocate up to 40 percent of beds to COVID-19 patients, Kadir said.
Health experts have warned that adding hospital beds is just a quick fix that will eventually diminish if the number of daily cases continues to rise.
Health policy expert Masdalina Pane of the Indonesian Epidemiologists Association said the government should instead step up testing and follow-up efforts, as well as strengthen health protocols and ensure public compliance.
She said high positivity rates were a sign of insufficient testing and widespread transmission of the virus, and efforts to force asymptomatic people to quarantine at home would help slow the spread of the virus.
The number of coronavirus-related cases and deaths has risen dramatically since early December, prompting seven regional governments in the islands of Java and Bali to re-impose restrictions on public activity.
The virus has killed more than 11,000 people in Indonesia since December 1, accounting for 40 percent of the total number of victims since the beginning of the outbreak in early March.
“It is time to complain because many of our brothers and sisters have died, including more than 600 health workers, while facing the pandemic,” Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said in a televised address on Tuesday. .
He promised that his ministry will continue to proactively implement measures to reduce the spread of the virus and urged people to follow disciplined health guidelines to reduce the burden on the country’s health system.
“This figure of 1 million provides an indication that all Indonesians must work with the government to fight the pandemic even harder,” Gunadi said.