When the first case of Covid was detected in China, no medical expert had foreseen that this deadly infection will emerge as a pandemic, thus pulling the entire planet to a state of shutdown. The pandemic has been disrupting the normal functioning of the world over the past 20 months, and all the countries are equally affected by rising Covid cases and fatalities. The Delta variant of Covid which triggered the second wave of the pandemic in countries like India is now wreaking havoc in Indonesia.
Indonesia facing the heat
According to the latest updates, the Delta variant of Covid has triggered a new wave of Covid outbreak in Indonesia. The country has reported more fresh Covid infections than India and Brazil as the Delta strain sweeps across southeast Asia, ultimately crunching the healthcare infrastructure of affected countries.
On Saturday, Indonesia witnessed 51,952 cases and 1,092 deaths, higher than India and Brazil for the third consecutive day. The United Kingdom is the only country that has a higher Covid figure than Brazil, with daily fresh cases of 54,674. However, it should be noted that the UK has a higher rate of testing when compared to Indonesia.
"The center of the pandemic in Asia is already in Indonesia right now, but if we have more testing capacity we are already the epicenter of the world. We miss many cases and we don't identify maybe 80% of these cases in the community. In Indonesia the testing is passive, it's not active. The one who comes to the healthcare facility is the one who gets tested if they show symptoms, or if they also identified as the contact," said Dr. Dicky Budiman, an Indonesian epidemiologist at Australia's Griffith University, The Guardian reports.
Indonesia: Weakest testing system in the world
Indonesia has one of the weakest Covid testing systems in the world when compared to neighboring nations and countries like India. The country has a track record of just 55.89 tests per 1,000 people since the start of the pandemic. In India, the testing rate is above 318 per 1,000 people.
Adding up to the worries, the coronavirus vaccination is progressing in Indonesia at a snail pace, and it could result in more cases and hospitalizations in the coming weeks.
