Ivany Atina Arbi, Jakarta – Indonesia has reported the highest daily rise of COVID-19 cases for two days in a row, with 2,657 cases recorded on Thursday, bringing the total number of infections nationwide to 70,736.
West Java recorded the highest spike with 962 new cases, followed by East Java and Jakarta with 517 and 284 cases, respectively.
"The significant increase in West Java comes from the Secapa [the Army's Officer Candidate School] cluster. In total, we've recorded 1,262 confirmed cases from the cluster," national COVID-19 task force spokesperson Achmad Yurianto said during his daily press briefing.
On Wednesday, West Java COVID-19 task force spokesperson Berli Hamdani told journalists that hundreds of students of Secapa in the provincial capital of Bandung had tested positive for the coronavirus during swab testing in the facility. He then declared the military academy a new COVID-19 cluster in the province, as reported by kompas.com.
Yurianto added only 17 out of the 1,262 confirmed cases were getting treatment at hospitals as they started to show symptoms of fever and shortness of breath. "The remaining 1,245 cases show no symptoms," Yurianto claimed.
He added they were currently quarantined at the military school in Bandung. No one is allowed in or out of the facility to prevent further spread of the virus.
Indonesian health authorities also reported that 58 more people had died from the disease, bringing the total number of deaths to 3,417. Meanwhile, 32,651 people have recovered from COVID-19, according to the government's official count.