Indonesia’s Coronavirus Cases Set to Hit 100,000
Jakarta. The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Indonesia is on the brink of reaching the 100,000 mark as soon as Monday, with daily cases averaging around 1,600 since the beginning of the month.
Only 23 countries in the world have recorded more than 100,000 cases and Indonesia will become the third Asian country to hit the grim milestone after India and Pakistan.
Indonesia has surpassed China, where the pandemic originated, since last week.
Southeast Asia’s biggest country has registered a total of 98,778 cases as of Sunday, 1,492 more from a day earlier. The overall cases included 4,781 deaths.
The surge in coronavirus cases continued as East Java emerged as another epicenter, Jakarta saw resurgence in transmission, South Sulawesi and South Kalimantan were unable to contain the spread of the disease, and Central Java became a new hotspot.
The five provinces have reported three-digit figure of daily cases during the most part of the month, making it very hard for the central government to flatten the curve.
Jakarta has reported the most cases in the past two weeks in a sign that the epicenter of the outbreak is returning to the capital city, which has accumulated more than 19,000 cases, including 759 deaths.
Daily cases have been fluctuating in East Java but rarely have they gone below 200 throughout this month. The worst-hit province has more than 20,500 cases, including 1,589 deaths.
South Sulawesi has become one of the hotspots since the outbreak and the only province outside the most densely populated island of Java to join the top five provinces with the most cases. It has reported 8,881 cases as of Sunday, including 302 deaths.
But it was Central Java where confirmed cases of the virus have been growing at a faster speed since mid-June, when it surpassed West Java as the fourth most-affected province.
Central Java is quickly closing in on South Sulawesi with 8,412 cases, while its death toll has more than doubled to 564 in July alone.
A sudden spike has also occurred in North Sumatra, where the virus has been spreading fast in recent weeks, resulting in more than 3,300 cases on Sunday. It has outnumbered South Sumatra, one of the worst-hit provinces in the early stage of the country’s outbreak.
South Kalimantan has its own problem in dealing with the epidemic. It was hit badly by the outbreak early on and has since shown no progress in slowing down the transmission rate. The province of around 4 million people has more than 5,600 cases.
Only six of the country’s 34 provinces have reported more than 5,000 cases so far.
However, the number of recovered Covid-19 patients has been gaining pace as well, totaling 56,655 on Sunday or 57.4 percent of confirmed cases.
The number of cured or discharged Covid-19 patients has surpassed 1,300 per day since July 15.