Indonesia is on the red line after an outbreak of Covid-19 cases linked to the Delta variant. On Tuesday, the Southeast Asian country recorded a new daily death record with 728 deaths, for 31,000 new cases. It becomes one of the countries with the most deaths with Russia (737) and Brazil (695) in one day.
The daily death toll was 558 on Monday, for 29,745 new cases of contamination, according to figures released by the Indonesian Ministry of Health. The fourth most populous country in the world, with nearly 270 million people, has seen its number of daily cases more than quadruple in less than a month. Faced with the situation, the government calls for help from other countries including China.
10,000 oxygen concentrators from Singapore
“We contacted Singapore, China and other sources” for help, said Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, a member of the government. Indonesia thus urgently imported 10,000 oxygen concentrators from Singapore: devices intended for people suffering from respiratory failure.
“We will order oxygen from other countries if we feel there are insufficient supplies. On Monday, the government ordered that all available oxygen supplies be sent to hospitals which are overwhelmed by the influx of coronavirus patients. He warned against the “worst case scenario” in which the daily number of new infections would reach 50,000.
Crowded hospitals turn away patients
“The health care system is on the verge of collapse, hospitals are overwhelmed, oxygen supplies are lacking, and health services in Java and Bali are woefully under-equipped to cope with this surge in the number of patients in a condition. critical, ”lamented the NGO Save the Children in a statement. Crowded hospitals are turning away patients, forcing desperate families to seek oxygen to care for the sick and dying at home.
In total, officially, 2.3 million people have been infected in Indonesia by the coronavirus which has killed 61,140 people. Experts believe these figures are well below reality, due to insufficient tests, and lack of tracing of cases. Indonesia has set a goal of vaccinating more than 180 million people by the start of next year. But at this point, only 5% of the population has received both doses.