Indonesia has lost over 500 doctors to COVID-19

INDONESIA has lost more than 00 doctors who succumbed to Covid-19 as the country’s record number of daily infections has made it the new pandemic epicentre in Asia.

“There are now colleagues who died as of July 17, and most of the fallen colleagues were in East Java, followed by Jakarta and Central Java,” Mahesa Paranadipa, a representative from the Indonesian Medical Association’s mitigation team, said in a streamed press conference on Sunday.

Indonesia’s capital Jakarta and the provinces of East Java and Central Java are located on the densely populated island of Java, which are under an emergency lockdown with the neighbouring resort island of Bali since July 3 to stem the worsening outbreak triggered by the Delta variant of the virus. Paranadipa

said the number of doctors who had died so far in July was 11 , or an increase of more than 100 per cent compared to the total 1 in June.

Doctors have said that Indonesia’s hospitals have seen a surging influx of coronavirus patients and they have been operating with more capacity than they could properly handle.

Indonesia’s health authorities said they have added more beds and set up new emergency hospitals for patients with mild symptoms.

“Although it remains debatable, the way we see it, our health-care facilities are already in a potential position to collapse, or a functional collapse,” Adib humaidi, the head of the medical association’s mitigation team said.