Indonesia surpassed 200,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, after consistently detecting record numbers of new infections in the past several weeks.
According to government data released on Tuesday afternoon, the country's overall tally is 200,035 after recording 3,046 new cases. As many as 8,230 people have died of the disease, while 142,958 have recovered.
Jakarta detected the highest number of new infections with 48,393 cases and 1,317 deaths, followed by East Java with 36,342 cases and 2,608 deaths.
Both the central and local governments have insisted on reopening the economy after enforcing large-scale social restrictions (PSBB) in several high-risk areas. Data shows that when these restrictions were relaxed, infections started to increase.
President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has reminded his aides to prioritize health and COVID-19 mitigation over restarting economic activities, saying that health was the key to economic recovery.
“Let's not restart the economy before we have properly handled this COVID-19 issue,” the President said during a Cabinet meeting on Monday.
