Jakarta. Indonesia’s recent dramatic spike in newly coronavirus cases and deaths is attributable to West Java, which now averages more cases than Jakarta and reports higher daily death toll than East Java.
The country recorded a staggering 476 deaths on Thursday, the first time that the daily death toll has topped 400. The sad milestone came after West Java reported 200 deaths in the 24-hour period, setting a new provincial record for the highest number of Covid fatalities in a day.
On the same day, West Java recorded 4,532 coronavirus cases. Never before has a single province surpassed the 4,000 mark in a day.
West Java has added 55,473 cases since the beginning of the month, still behind Jakarta’s 75,570 cases in the same period.
However, the seven-day average in West Java now beats that of Jakarta for the first time since the outbreak began — 2,893 against 2,868.
West Java has recorded a total of 139,052 cases, second only to Jakarta, and 1,838 Covid deaths, the lowest death toll among the country’s four most populous provinces that also include Central and East Java.
But the daily death toll in West Java has been averaging within three digits in the past week.
More than half of overall cases in West Java have been detected in cities and districts that share border with Jakarta, including Depok, Bekasi and Bogor.
Indonesia has recorded a total of 1.04 million coronavirus cases and 29,331 deaths amid an ongoing surge that has started since late November.
It has added the pace in new infections come January, with an average of 10,528 cases in the 28-day period.
By comparison, the country averaged 6,591 cases in December.
With this pace, January will top the previous monthly high by more than 100,000 cases.
January has also become the deadliest month in the Indonesian outbreak with 7,193 deaths month to date. The previous record for the highest monthly death toll was 5,193 in December.
Jakarta has recorded a total of 259,305 cases and 4,151 deaths since the outbreak started.
Central Java has the third-highest number of cases with a total of 121,508, including 5,319 deaths.
The virus has killed more people in East Java than in other provinces. There have been 7,639 coronavirus-related deaths from a total of 110,103 cases in East Java.
Daily numbers are fluctuating in other hotspots like South Sulawesi, East Kalimantan, Yogyakarta, Bali and Banten, but they are in an upward trend in general.
South Sulawesi, which has the most cases outside Java, reported a new high of 679 cases on Thursday to take its total to 46,598. The new record came after the daily count had fallen for several days in the province.
East Kalimantan has outpaced South Sulawesi in the past week to record a total of 39,186 cases.
Both Bali and Banten have added more than 7,100 cases this month to take their totals to around 25,000 each.
The total number of cases in Yogyakarta has jumped by more than 200 percent since December 1 and it now records a total of 20,840 cases.
