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COVID-19 cases spike as fourth wave takes hold
Another phase of health crisis looms large as the country enters the fourth wave of COVID-19 infection, now driven by the highly contagious Omicron sub-variants.
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A crowd of people wait at a bus station in Jakarta on June 22. (AFP/Adek Berry)
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nother phase of the health crisis looms large as the country enters the fourth wave of COVID-19 infection, now driven by the highly contagious Omicron sub-variants.
Indonesia recorded 4,329 new infections on Saturday, the highest daily caseload since March 25, according to official data from the national COVID-19 task force. From July 10 to July 16, the country recorded 22,684 new cases, a 27.6 percent increase from the previous week with 16,426 new cases. It now has a total of 26,594 active cases.
While the figures may not accurately reflect the true scale of the current community infection due to a lack of adequate testing and contact tracing, they do indicate a significant increase in cases, experts say.
“It looks like we are entering the fourth wave. We really have to be very careful because the spike in cases cannot be underestimated,” Zubairi Djoerban, the head of the Indonesian Medical Association's (IDI) COVID-19 task force, told The Jakarta Post over the weekend. “We overcame this situation months ago, and Indonesia can be said to be quite successful compared with our neighboring countries, but this remains a threat.”
As of Saturday, the country’s weekly positivity rate was 11.7 percent, surpassing the World Health Organization’s benchmark of 5 percent.
Omicron sub-variants
The current wave of infection is believed to have been driven by the Omicron sub-variants – BA.4 and BA.5 – which were first detected in South Africa earlier this year. The two variants have been detected in at least 58 and 63 countries, respectively.
