Guwahati News Desk: Indonesia has now surpassed India to become Asia’s new epicenter for the coronavirus pandemic, with daily infections exceeding 40,000 for two straight days.
According to sources, Indonesia on Tuesday reported 47,899 fresh COVID-19 infections, increasing from 40,427 on Monday. Whereas, India on Tuesday reported 31,443 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, the lowest in 118 days.
On Tuesday, Indonesia’s Health Minister, Budi Sadikin, said that bed occupancy rates for COVID-19 patients in 12 provinces have exceeded 70 per cent – half of them on Java and the rest on other major Indonesian islands. In the nation’s capital, Jakarta, the occupancy rate is close to 90 per cent despite the recent conversion of some facilities into hospitals just for the coronavirus and also informed, that the government is preparing for a scenario where cases could increase 30 per cent over the next two weeks and accelerate in other regions.
Sadikin said, “Nationwide there are still (beds), but cases in several provinces are very high already because of uneven outbreaks of the delta variant.”
He further added, “Delta cases are still concentrated in Java, but we’ve seen them spreading outside Java – Lampung, East Kalimantan, South Sumatra, West Papua, Riau Islands and Bengkulu are now under our radar.”
According to reports, the alarming fact is that despite having more daily infections, Indonesia’s population of 270 million is just a fifth of Indiaâs, and Indonesia now has around 132 cases per million people, compared to India as of Sunday.
Meanwhile, India’s cumulative tally of coronavirus cases is still the highest in Asia with 30.9 million cases and 4.10 lakh deaths as of Tuesday, followed by Indonesia with 26.15 lakh cases and 68,219 deaths.
However, as India’s figures keep falling, Indonesia’s worst outbreak since the beginning of the pandemic is not yet showing any signs of slowing down.
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