TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Head of the Jakarta Health Agency’s Disease Prevention and Control, Dwi Oktavia, on Sunday said the capital city logged 78 new cases after conducting tests on 4,970 specimens extracted from Covid-19 PCR tests.

14,542 people were also tested with antigen tests which resulted in 23 positive results while 14,519 came back negative. However, results from antigen tests - as confirmed by the health agency - are not included in the overall number of cases in the country.

“Out of those tests, 4,273 people were tested with PCR and diagnosed 78 new cases [on Sunday] with 4,195 negatives,” Oktavia wrote in a written statement on May 8.

Active cases as of Sunday dropped by 39 cases with 592 people undergoing treatment in healthcare facilities or are under isolation. The capital city logged a positivity rate of 2.1 percent in the past week, which is well below the WHO standard of under 5 percent.

She strongly suggested Jakartans always be wary of the Covid-19 Omicron variant which still spreads faster than the previous coronavirus types. The total number of COvid-19 patients since the early days of the pandemic reaches 1,248,320 cases with 1,232,444 recoveries and 15,284 deaths which has a 98.7 percent recovery rate and 1.2 percent mortality rate.

Read: Covid-19 Endemic Status Waits for Further Evaluation

LANI DIANA WIJAYA