Jokowi Says Covid-19 Daily Cases May Reach 400,000 If Not Contained

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo said the daily trend of Covid-19 in Indonesia continues to get better after the dramatic surge in infections due to the Delta variant.

In mid-May 2021, he recalled, the daily infection numbers dropped to 2,633 from around 12,800 in early February. Due to the Delta variant, the figure skyrocketed to 56,000 cases in July 2021.

Widodo remembered that the team of epidemiologists, at that time, told him to be alert given that the number could possibly continue to soar to 80,000 and further to 160,000 cases.

“If we can't stop it, it can rise to above 400,000, but Alhamdulillah (Praise to God), there has been a decline,” he said at an online event on Thursday, August 26.

Despite gratefulness for better Covid-19 development, he underlined that all parties must remain vigilant and cautious in making policy decisions. “Because this (Covid-19) is difficult to predict and full of uncertainty, let alone the Delta variant,” he said.

The hospital bed occupancy rate has also decreased. At the end of December 2020, it was about 68 percent. The figure then dropped to 29 percent in May’s end of 2021. However, the rate jumped to nearly 80 percent on July 18 following the Delta variant. The BOR even reached 100 percent in a number of hospitals.

“Alhamdulillah, today's national BOR has dropped to 29 percent. We should be grateful for this,” said Jokowi.

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