Former WHO Official Expresses Concerns Amid Covid-19 Spike

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Tjandra Yoga Aditama, who is a former WHO South-East Asia director of communicable diseases department, on Friday voiced concerns over the current Covid-19 case spike as Indonesia on Thursday logged 27,197 cases with 38 deaths. 

"Yesterday's data shows the number of new cases increased by 58 percent and deaths increased 50 percent from the day before," he wrote in a statement on February 4. 

This is a significant rise when compared with the previous month on January 3, 2022, which only recorded 265 new cases and 5 deaths. This means, new daily cases have increased by more than 100 times, and deaths per day have increased by several hundred percent.

In regards to this worrying trend, he said the two key aspects that can help suppress a further spread of cases are by evaluating the public activity restriction (PPKM) and on-site learning at schools (PTM).

“President Joko Widodo on January 31 and February 3 ordered just that, that is aimed to control Covid-19 in the days ahead,” he said. 

The professor at the Department of Pulmonology and Respiratory Medicine, Faculty of Medicine at the University of Indonesia (FKUI) recalled the new cases on July 3 last year was 27,913 people, which means almost similar to the recent cases at 27,197 people. 

"And at that time last year, the emergency PPKM was implemented," said Tjandra who predicts cases will continue to grow in the coming days, though it is difficult to predict the exact number.

The University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) predicts that the daily cases of Covid-19 in Indonesia by the end of February 2022 will jump to more than 185,000 cases.

“Predictions can be correct or miss it completely. But at least this can be used for our mitigation efforts,” he said. “As the popular saying suggests, we should pray for the best, but prepare for the worst.”

Read: Indonesia Adds 27,000 New COVID-19 Cases; Jokowi Asks for PPKM Evaluation

MOH KHORY ALFARIZI