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Indonesia recorded 1,040 deaths per day from COVID-19, the highest number since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. This was announced on Wednesday by the country’s Ministry of Health.
Indonesia also reported the highest number of new coronavirus infection cases per day, with more than 34,000 cases. Their number has already exceeded 2.37 million since March last year, when the first infected person in the country was identified. During this time, 62.9 thousand people were victims of COVID-19. people.
July 3 Indonesian authorities have imposed a strict quarantine on the island of Java and the province of Bali. July 7 Social restrictions were introduced in 43 cities outside Java and Bali.
The restrictions include requiring many residents to work from home, restricting the opening hours of restaurants and shops, and closing mosques and churches in high-risk areas.
The new restrictions will force dozens of cities from the island of Sumatra in the west to the Papua region in the east, with the highly contagious delta strain of the coronavirus sweeping the island state of Southeast Asia.
“The number of cases is also growing in other regions, so we must pay attention to the number of hospital places there,” said the coordinating Minister of Economy, Airlangga Hartarto, adding that the government had decided to extend the restrictions until the 20th. of July.
Indonesian hospitals are increasingly overcrowded due to the rapidly increasing flow of people infected with COVID-19.
This week, the government imposed restrictions on the entire island of Java, including the capital Jakarta and the resort island of Bali, and on Tuesday reported a daily record of 31,189 COVID-19 cases and 728 deaths. That’s about seven times more deaths than a month ago.
While the number of cases is lower in other regions where restrictions were imposed on Wednesday than in Java, a poorer healthcare infrastructure in those regions could pose significant problems, Hartart said.
“The infrastructure in these regions is limited and overcrowded,” he said, emphasizing that even stricter restrictions could be imposed if the number of infections continues to rise.
Indonesia ranks second in Asia in terms of the number of coronavirus infections and deaths, and a delta strain has spread across the island nation.
The Indonesian government plans to vaccinate 181.5 million. population early next year. In total, more than 270 million people live in the country. people. To date, more than 14.26 million have been fully vaccinated. Indonesian population.
In Indonesia, quarantine restrictions were tightened on Wednesday due to a sudden wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and a sharp rise in deaths, with the government warning that the worst is yet to come.
Vaccine effectiveness is questionable
Indonesian pulmonologist Erlina Burhan feels completely exhausted after another long shift in a crowded hospital. Up to 200 colleagues infected with COVID-19 are currently unable to work, even though they were vaccinated only a few months ago, Reuters reports. “Madness, true madness,” he made no secret of his resentment. – More patients and less staff. That’s absurd. “
According to the Indonesian Hospital Association (IHA), about 95 percent of healthcare workers have been fully vaccinated, most of them with Chinese Sinovac vaccines, Reuters reports.
However, according to information provided by the independent data group Lapor COVID-19, 131 people who worked in the health sector died, most of them vaccinated with Sinovac.
Although the rise in infections has led some experts to question the efficacy of the vaccine, the Indonesian government tends to attribute this to the delta strain rather than the ineffectiveness of the vaccine.
Most infected health workers experience moderate symptoms, but surveys of doctors, hospital directors and health officials show that 150 million people are infected. Thousands of people are isolated on the populated island of Java, which is at the epicenter of the situation, which is deteriorating as a result of the outbreak.
According to Lia Partakusuma, Secretary General of the Indonesian Hospital Association, the situation in Java’s largest hospitals has been clarified. “They say that 10 percent. The COVID test for their employees is positive,” he confirmed.
According to Partakusuma, these workers must be isolated for two weeks, although, according to other health workers, because they are very necessary at work, the isolation usually lasts five days.
According to doctors and hospital directors, the increase in the number of deaths and infections among health workers should not occur at a time when the situation in the country is so bad. The number of COVID-19 cases has officially quadrupled in recent months, currently reaching more than 31,000. new cases per day means that the number of patients needing hospital treatment has increased three to five times. The small amount of evidence, according to epidemiologists, means that the data on COVID-19 does not reflect the true extent of the outbreak.
Patients connected to drips in parking lots, others unconsciously lying in hallways, searching for feverish oxygen; All these images, according to doctors and hospital managers, are no longer surprising in Java.
Many hospitals are already nearly overcrowded or exceed available capacity. Public health experts fear that the situation will worsen and warn that the situation in Indonesia could be on par with that of India, where COVID-19 cases reached record levels and the health system overheated in April and May of this. anus.
It is true that Indonesia is far less prepared to deal with such a crisis than India, writes Rueters. According to information published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a thousand population per 0.4 doctors and this result is the fifth since the end in the Asia and the Pacific region and more than twice as poor as in the India.
Hospitals facing staff shortages are recruiting volunteers – pharmacists, radiologists and medical students – but such efforts are not yet yielding tangible results. The head of the hospital’s network, who agreed to communicate anonymously, said that caring for COVID-19 patients often requires skills that students or other volunteers simply don’t have.
“It is definitely not a solution,” he said.
The country’s authorities in Java and Bali have imposed severe social restrictions and the country’s health minister has promised to find about 8,000. extra beds in hospitals.
However, doctors doubt that beds will pay off in the absence of staff.
“The problem is human resources. Even if we give them more space, who will take care of them? – outraged neurologist doctor Ekas Juliantas Wahjoepramono.” No, that’s the problem.
Indonesia bought large quantities of Sinovac vaccines from China, as the pharmaceutical company was the only one willing to sell large quantities of the vaccine quickly. So in February and March of this year. the majority of Indonesian health workers were vaccinated in 2006, making them a test group to evaluate the efficacy of the vaccine.
Initially, the Sinovac vaccination program significantly reduced the number of deaths from COVID-19. In January of this year. 158 doctors died from the disease, and in May. there were only 13 of them.
According to the Indonesian Medical Association, since June. at least 30 doctors died with COVID-19.
Last month, a fully vaccinated doctor, EJ Wahjoepramono, was hospitalized for a serious form of the disease.
“For many of my colleagues, a significant increase in antibodies has not been found after Sinovac,” he said.
Indonesian Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin is ready to defend the Sinovac vaccine. “The problem we are facing is not the different effectiveness of the vaccines, but, above all, the delta strain,” he said.
The Indonesian Medical Association, for its part, urges the country’s authorities to provide health workers with a third dose of the vaccine and to do so as soon as possible. Some doctors go to the United States, where they get vaccinated with vaccines from other manufacturers, but according to Dr. Berlian Idriansyah Idris, such a trip is too expensive for most.
“We can’t isolate ourselves and work from home, for God’s sake, but not now,” he resented. “The third dose would give us the protection we so badly need.”
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