On July 1, Indonesia recorded nearly 25,000 new infections and 504 deaths, after recording less than 200 daily deaths a month ago, with a large share of new infections occurring in its populous capital.
Some 60% of 300 recent cases that were genome sequenced are the Delta strain, which was first detected in India. Nearly 60,000 people have died of the disease in Indonesia since the start of the pandemic.
Only two months ago, Indonesia was coming to a gasping India’s aid. Now, Jakarta is experiencing a severe new wave of Covid-19 that has led oxygen prices to jump and the Red Cross to warn of a looming catastrophe.
It is a reminder of how frequently countries will lurch between relative stability and a health system in danger of collapse, particularly as more aggressive variants circulate, and vaccination rates remain low in many places.
The main hospitals in Jakarta are at 93% capacity, forcing patients to go to smaller hospitals where they have a chance of admission, even though those facilities may lack important life-saving equipment such as ventilators. In some cases, emergency care is being moved into tents outside hospital in order to make more room for Covid beds. Indonesians worry they may be just days away from the traumatic disasters that befell hospitals in India’s capital as oxygen ran out.
While the scenes of people lining up refill oxygen cylinders are reminiscent of Delhi’s second wave in April, considered one of the worse health system failures of the pandemic, the Indonesian government says supplies of oxygen are not running out. Health minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said lessons have been learned from witnessing India’s crisis—Indonesia is redeploying 75% of industrial oxygen supplies to medical use over the next two weeks, the Guardian reported, as well as keeping tabs on stocks of concentrators.
Broad restrictions in place
President Joko Widodo announced new social restrictions to take effect from tonight, including a ban on restaurant dining, shifting non-essential workers to working from home, and limiting travel. But health experts wish some of these steps had come earlier. The World Health Organization advised two weeks ago that Indonesia needed to implement large-scale social restrictions.
