JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) – Confirmed coronavirus infections in Indonesia since the start of the pandemic exceeded 1 million on Tuesday and hospitals in some hard-hit areas were nearly full.
The Indonesian Ministry of Health announced that the number of new daily infections rose by 13,094 on Tuesday, bringing the country’s total to 1,012,350, the highest number in Southeast Asia. The total number of deaths was 28,468.
The milestone comes just weeks after Indonesians launched a massive campaign to inoculate two-thirds of the country’s 270 million people, with President Joko Widodo receiving the first injection of a Chinese-made vaccine. Health workers, military, police, teachers and other at-risk groups are given priority for the vaccine in the fourth most populous country in the world.
Officials have said Indonesia requires nearly 427 million doses, bearing in mind the estimate that 15% of the doses could be wasted in the distribution process in the vast land of more than 17,000 islands, where transportation and infrastructure are limited in places.
Jakarta remains the worst hit city in Indonesia, confirming more than 254,000 cases, including 4,077 deaths, on Tuesday. Only 8.5% of the city’s total of 8,066 hospital beds were left for new patients as of Tuesday, while beds were filled with ventilators.
Other provinces on the most densely populated island of Java, such as West Java, East Java and Yogyakarta, have also seen high bed occupancy rates, up to 95%, in recent weeks. Even in the neighboring province of Banten in Jakarta, the occupancy rate reached 100% last week.
Data from the Ministry of Health showed that hospital capacity across the country was about 70%.
Abdul Kadir, the director general of health services at the ministry, called the situation “dire”.
The government has issued a circular calling on private hospital owners across the country to allocate up to 40% of beds to COVID-19 patients, Kadir said.
Health experts have warned that adding hospital beds is only a quick fix that will eventually falter 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 detection efforts, strengthen health protocols and ensure public compliance.
She said high positivity rates are a sign of inadequate testing and widespread transmission of the virus, and that attempts 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 the beginning of December, leading seven regional governments in the islands of Java and Bali to once again impose restrictions on public activities.
The virus has killed more than 11,000 people in Indonesia since December 1, representing 40% of the total number of victims since the outbreak in early March.
“Now is the time for us to grieve, as many of our brothers and sisters, including more than 600 health workers, have died while dealing with a pandemic,” Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said in a televised address on Tuesday.
He promised that his ministry will continue to take proactive measures to curb the spread of the virus and urged people to follow health guidelines with discipline to lessen the burden on the country’s health care system.
“This figure of 1 million is an indication that all Indonesian people must work with the government to fight the pandemic even harder,” Gunadi said.