TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Former Regional Director of the World Health Organization (WHO) for Southeast Asia, Tjandra Yoga Aditama, said the data of Covid-19 deaths is the key indicator to assess the epidemiological situation.

“If the available data is considered not good, then it must be corrected,” said Yoga in a written statement on Wednesday, August 11.

He argued that the death tally illustrates the severity levels of the pandemic. Indonesia, he added, recorded a high rate of deaths caused by the coronavirus disease, compared to India that reached 5,000 deaths per day following the rampant Delta variant cases.

“When the Emergency PPKM (Covid-19 restrictions) kicked off on July 3, the death number was 491, so [I predict] the figure on August 10 will be four times higher,” Yoga said.

The Java-Bali PPKM Coordinator Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan excluded the daily death toll used to assess the restriction levels after finding issues in the input of data that was not updated.

The government thus determined that the PPKM status of 26 regencies/cities lowered from level 4 to level 3, through an assessment on only five indicators, namely the hospital bed occupancy rate, confirmed cases, hospitalization, tracing, testing, and people’s socio-economic conditions.

A spokesman for Luhut, Jodi Mahardi, clarified that the government would re-include the Covid-19 death tally to the PPKM levels assessment after the data was corrected.

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DEWI NURITA