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Return to normal soon in doubt as Indonesian cases jump
By James Massola and Karuni Rompies
Indonesia is struggling to contain hundreds of new daily cases of coronavirus, including its largest single-day rise in infections on Tuesday.
The country reported 367 new infections on Wednesday and 484 cases on Tuesday. Tuesday's total surpassed the previous record of 436 new infections on April 24.
The big increases come even as government officials including COVID-19 taskforce chief Doni Monardo and Health Department official Achmad Yurianto have previously suggested they were aiming for the spread of the virus to be under control by June and for "normal" life to begin to resume in June or July.
A man looks for discarded plastic near newly dug graves for those suspected of dying from COVID-19 in Jakarta, Indonesia. Credit: Getty Images
But at the daily coronavirus briefings on Tuesday and Wednesday, Yurianto indicated for the first time the government's timeframe for a return to normal could be pushed back to August.
"Keep washing your hands, do not do mudik [the annual return to home villages across the country]. With asymptomatic cases, continue to stay home," Yurianto said.
"We need to do this well so by August we have completely overcome this. Because only we can save our nation."
On April 27, when Indonesia reported 214 new infections, Doni suggested June was the government's target for infection rates to fall. Since then it has reported fewer than 300 cases per day on just two days.
In that time, Indonesia has belatedly ramped up its relatively low testing rates to the point where it has now conducted 121,547 tests on 88,924 patients. Labs across the country have set up testing facilities and the supply of the chemical reagents needed has improved.
A cleaner walks through the nearly empty Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Jakarta, Indonesia.Credit: Getty Images
In total, it has now reported 12,438 positive cases and 895 deaths. The death toll rose by 23 more people on Wednesday and it remains the highest in south-east Asia by a considerable margin.
Experts such as the University of Queensland Professor of Virology Ian Mackay questioned the June or July timeframe previously suggested and warned the country needed to be doing a lot more testing.
Despite the recent increase in testing rates, Indonesia still lags far behind its near neighbours in Vietnam (261,004 tests), Malaysia, (154,212), Singapore (143,919) and the Philippines (126,154) – all of which have much smaller populations.
Meanwhile, Thailand has reported 2988 coronavirus cases and 54 deaths since the outbreak began in January. The country reported one new coronavirus case and no new deaths, the lowest number of new infections since March 9 and the number of new cases have been declining in the last two weeks, except for a cluster at an immigration detention centre in the south.
That centre has seen 60 new cases in two weeks, said Taweesin Wisanuyothin, spokesman for the government's Centre for COVID-19 Situation Administration.
Singapore reported 632 new cases of coronavirus infection on Tuesday, with all but nine of those cases being low paid migrant workers that live in dormitories.
That increase takes Singapore's total to 19,410 cases, the highest number of cases in south-east Asia.
Singapore's initial handling of the coronavirus had been widely cited as a text book example of how to handle the crisis, but the rapid spread in recent weeks through the dormitories has proved to be a major setback.
- with wires