JAKARTA - As Jakarta's governmental COVID-19 response website (https://corona.jakarta.go.id/) reported yesterday (18/1), there has been 229,726 total cases reported in the nation's capital. That accounts 2.13% of the total population of 10,770,487. In other words, the numbers also mean that for every 50 people in Jakarta, there is at least one person that have contracted the virus.
More worryingly, the number of people tested in Jakarta accounts for 30.91% (10,012 people out of 32,381 on January 18, 2021) of the total people tested in Indonesia, while the population of Jakarta only accounts 4.02% of Indonesia's over 267 million population. Alternatively, the numbers meant that almost one-third of the people tested in the whole nation are only in Jakarta, leaving other regions of the country relatively untested.
Nationwide, the outlook of COVID-19 in Indonesia also looked bleak, as the nation broke new infection record on Saturday (16/1), with 14,224 new cases out of 63,300 samples tested (22.47% positive rate). The figure also remained relatively constant in the past few days, with 24.46% positive rate on January 17, 2021 (11,287 out of 46,138 sample tested) and 19.13% positive rate on January 18, 2021 (9,086 new cases out of 47,488 sample tested). This was a stark difference compared to four months ago, with 8.76% positive rate reported on September 18, 2020 (3,891 new cases out of 44,428 samples tested). The sharp increase of positive rates in Indonesia is way behind the WHO standards of 5%.
With 917,105 total COVID-19 cases as of today (19/1), Indonesia sits 20th worldwide in terms of cases reported. According to data posted in Worldometers, testing rate in Indonesia remained strikingly low, as Indonesia tested only 30,400 sample tests per 1 million population, lowest among the top 20 countries. Mexico, 2nd last, tested 31,918 per 1 million population, while Iran, 3rd last, tested more than three times compared to the bottom two, with 101,441 tests per 1 million population. (AC)