By Yan Han Hsu
With the delta virus spreading, Indonesia is now the country with the second highest count of new covid-19 infections. Indonesia has had five hundred and seventy thousand cases in total and twelve thousand deaths in the last fourteen days, however health experts say that the actual number may be more.
The trend of people in the world infected by covid -19 is slowly going down, but Indonesia’s is going higher for the past sixty days. Now, there are about thirty thousand cases reported each day( with the highest of fifty seven cases on 7/15). What’s more, Bicky Budiman, an expert, predicts that the real number of infections is three to six times higher than the official one. “For more than a year, our test positivity rate has almost never been below 10 percent, which means we are missing many cases and we cannot identify the majority of infections and the clusters,” he said.
Now, the hospitals are lacking beds and oxygen. Some hospitals can do nothing but to accept only those who have their own oxygen bottles. Tents are pitched outside the hospitals because there are too many people. Some patients are afraid of the situation and choose to stay at home. The problem of not having enough resources is causing patients to die when they could have survived with well treatment.
The vaccination in the country is not optimistic, either. First, the number of people being vaccinated is only about fifteen percent of the population. The number of people fully vaccinated is only six point one percent. Second, their main label of the vaccines is Sinovac, which is found to be less effective as others. Until now, at least twenty doctors have died of covid-19 even being fully vaccinated by Sinovax.
Other southeast Asian countries are also facing one of the biggest outbreaks. Other countries should help them more, not only for those who are suffering but themselves, too. The longer the pandemic is, the more possible for the virus to variat. The delta virus is because of this. And now, it’s causing more infections in more than seventy four countries. If the pandemic goes on with outbreaks everywhere, the variations won’t stop, which will extend the pandemic. One day, the vaccines may need to R&D again. People should work together, the virus is our only enemy.
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