Health Minister: Covid-19 Deaths to Likely Peak in 2 Weeks Time

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin in a written statement on Tuesday predicts there will be five provinces that will experience peak Covid-19 death cases within the next two weeks which is based on the peak spread of covid in five provinces of Jakarta, Banten, Bali, Maluku, and West Nusa Tenggara. 

“We compared this to other countries where peak death cases are usually 15-20 days from the peak transmission. So even though provinces such as Jakarta have shown a declining number of cases, Bali too, but the peak death cases will happen 2 weeks after,” said the Minister on February 22. 

Other provinces that are experiencing peak transmission but have yet shown signs of dropping are West Java, Central Java, East Java, Papua, North Sulawesi, Lampung, South Sulawesi, North Sulawesi, and South Sumatra. 

In order to prevent a rising number of deaths, he reminded the general public to complete their vaccination doses as he said the majority of Covid-19 patients who do not survive are people who have incomplete vaccination records. 

“We observed that many of those who did not survive have only been vaccinated once and have comorbidities and are older groups,” he said. 

Moreover, Minister Budi said 70 percent of Indonesians or 189 million of the population have been vaccinated with the first dose. The Health Ministry’s data suggests Covid-19 cases on February 21 saw 34,418 additional cases, which is a significant decrease compared to a few days prior that logged 64,718 cases. 

Read: No Significant Covid-19 Cases In G20 Events, Minister Airlangga Claims

M JULNIS FIRMANSYAH