TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Jakarta Deputy Governor Ahmad Riza Patria announced at City Hall on Tuesday that Jakarta’s hospital bed occupancy rate for Covid-19 patients has started to drop by 3 percent. Previously, it was 63 percent as the city battled against the spread of the Omicron variant.

“Alhamdulillah, 63 percent is now 60 percent. From 5,913 beds available, 3,554 beds are occupied,” said the deputy governor on February 8.

According to Riza, this statistic is a significantly smaller number compared to when Jakarta was hit by the Delta variant wave in 2021 which saw 11,500 beds occupied.

Meanwhile, the occupancy rate of ICU beds is currently 36 percent; 310 beds are occupied from a total of 850 available. He encouraged people to not panic in the face of this case surge.

“So there is no need to worry, Jakarta continues to increase its healthcare facilities, hospitals, community health centers, and the manpower to support it,” he added.

The Jakarta governor, Anies Baswedan, previously called for people exposed to Covid-19 who suffer from mild symptoms to isolate themselves at home to help control the bed occupancy rate in hospitals and relieve the burden for healthcare workers to focus on non-coronavirus patients who need care.

Jakarta logged 15,825 new confirmed cases on February 6, which is comparatively higher than the Delta surge of new confirmed cases of 14,619 in 2021.

Out of the 60 percent BOR statistic, only 12 percent of Covid-19 patients are showing severe and mild symptoms that need hospital treatment with 48 percent being those with mild symptoms and need no hospital treatment.

“This means the transmission rate is indeed high but the severity is not that high,” he said.

Read: Govt Yet to Enforce Emergency PPKM to Contain Omicron, Palace Says

M JULNIS FIRMANSYAH