Too Soon to Claim Omicron Reached Its Peak: Epidemiologist

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - An epidemiologist from Griffith University, Dicky Budiman, in an interview with Tempo on Tuesday believes it is still too early for the Indonesian government to claim the Omicron spread has reached its peak. The government has even claimed a number of regions have passed their peak and will soon see a dropping number of cases.

Determining a peak Coronavirus transmission, he said, must be backed by statistics on testing. "Meanwhile, the data that now exist have not backed the claim," said Budiman on February 15.

The Health Ministry's data on specimen testing in the past seven weeks averaged at around 400,000, which the epidemiologist believes is far from sufficient.

"And even though we have reached our peak, it doesn't mean Omicron is over. Other countries have shown trends where cases can rise again and take some time to subside," Budiman explained.

He noted that large countries can potentially see outbreaks in smaller regions with various peaks and differs from the Delta wave that spread simultaneously.

In an official announcement on Monday, Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin announced the peak of the Omicron outbreak at 55,000 cases and unfortunately saw 111 perish.

As a comparison, the Delta Covid-19 outbreak peaked on July 15, 2021, with 56,000 cases and a death toll of 2,069.

Read: Indonesia's Daily Covid Cases Hit Record High of 57,049

DEWI NURITA