Jakarta to See Higher New COVID-19 Cases as Test Capacity Climbs

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Jakarta provincial administration is anticipating a surge in the number of COVID-19 positive cases since the test capacity in the capital increases.

The Head of Disease Prevention and Control Division at the city’s Health Agency, Dwi Otavia, said the Community Health Center or Puskesmas raised the capacity of the coronavirus infection tests by adopting an active case-finding strategy.

“Some of the preparations are tracing, testing, isolating, and treating,” said Dwi in a written statement on Friday, June 11.

Dwi explained the preparations would be prioritized considering the hike in the test capacity would lead to a higher number of new positive cases that were not detected previously. According to her, the city administration has held 17,270 PCR tests for the past ten days.

“With an average daily examination at 1,727 specimens. This figure jumped by 1.1 times compared to the daily average tests on the first day of May 2020 at 1,562 specimens,” Dwi explained.

Hence, Jakarta has conducted PCR tests involving 189,552 specimens on 90,287 people. Dwi added that the PCR tests in the capital reached 8,481 people per one million population.

As of date, Jakarta has 8,628 COVID-19 confirmed cases. The Head of Health Resources at the Jakarta Health Agency, Ani Ruspitawati, said in an online press conference that 1,425 patients were still being treated in hospital, and 2,863 patients were self-isolating at their homes.

Ani added that Jakarta had so far recorded 3,780 recoveries, while the death toll reached 560 cases. Meanwhile, the number of people under monitoring (ODP) amounted to 19,404, and patients under surveillance (PDP) at 13,148 people.

ADAM PRIREZA