TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Finance Minister Sri Mulyani said the COVID-19 pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus in Indonesia was expected to reach its peak at the end of May 2020 with the number of patients amounting to 95,000 people.

Sri made the statement during a meeting with the House of Representatives' (DPR) Commission XI on Monday, April 6. The prediction, she added, was developed by the State Intelligence Agency (BIN) in collaboration with the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) and the University of Indonesia (UI).

“Referring to various models developed by BIN, UI, and ITB, the peak is projected to occur in May’s end with a total of 95,000 infected patients,” Sri added.

The former managing director of the World Bank underlined that the government was striving to suppress or flatten the curve even though it would be hard to completely defeat the virus.

“The number of patients will surge and thus, urgent, strategic steps are needed to curb the peak of the virus transmission. In research, the curve can be flattened, meaning the growth is inevitable but not exponential.”

Sri further mentioned that the new coronavirus that caused COVID-19 had spread in 207 countries with new cases per day reaching 100,000. Meanwhile, Indonesia reported its first case on March 2, making it among the countries that were late in having such cases considering the outbreak initially emerged in December 2019 and had been widely reported since January 2020.

"The development of the transmission has experienced an exponential escalation and is concentrated in Jakarta. Jakarta is the epicenter of COVID-19 or the red zone," Sri Mulyani said.

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