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JAKARTA – Indonesia’s chief minister and close aide to Jokowi, Luhut Pandjaitan, has questioned the validity of certain coronavirus test figures published by data collection site Worldometer.
The coordinating minister for Maritime Affairs and Investments has argued that giving a proportion of Covid-19 test numbers to the general population of a country provides a skewed perspective of countries covering multiple vast and remote geographic regions.
He said Indonesia is a vast and highly populated archipelagic country with countless remote locations across its 34 provinces, with more than 17,000 islands. Therefore, the Worldometer test rate by population measure is not valid for your country.
Mr. Luhut added that Indonesia, Japan, and other similar countries suffer from this type of bias, adding that Japan’s tests per million population (11,795 at last count) are roughly the same level as Indonesia’s.
“We do very aggressive testing in at least six provinces (that have) the highest number of coronavirus cases. Obviously, we don’t need to be so aggressive, for example, in Bangka Belitung province,” Luhut told The Straits Times on Thursday ( September 3). ) Morning.
Bangka Belitung has recorded 235 positive Covid-19 cases and two deaths in the 1.5 million people who reside there.
The six Indonesian provinces with the most Covid-19 cases are Jakarta, East Java, Central Java, South Sulawesi, West Java, and South Kalimantan. Together, they account for 68 percent of all infections in the country.
Indonesia has a population of about 270 million and has recorded 180,646 confirmed cases of Covid-19, with 129,971 recoveries and 7,616 deaths as of Wednesday.
The country has been in the spotlight for having the lowest testing rate among countries, with more than 100,000 confirmed cases of infection.
According to pandemic figures from the Worldometer data site, with 8,287 tests per million people, Indonesia, the fourth most populous country in the world, ranks lowest among countries with 100,000 cases or more. Bangladesh is the second worst, with 9,563 tests per million, and Mexico third, with 10,530 tests per million.
In a virtual briefing on Wednesday, Professor Wiku Adisasmito, spokesman for the national Covid-19 task force, said that Indonesia has many islands where few or no people travel in or out.
Many of these islands have not registered any cases of Covid-19, added Professor Wiku.
There are 26 cities and regencies in Indonesia that have not seen any coronavirus cases and another 42 that have not seen an increase in new cases in the last week, according to government data.
Nias Island in North Sumatra Province, Konawe Islands in Southeast Sulawesi Province, and Aru Islands in Maluku Province are among the regions that have not recorded a single confirmed case of Covid-19.
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