Lenny Tristia Tambun, Heru Andriyanto, Jakarta – The total number of beds occupied in hospitals across Indonesia has dropped significantly amid an ease in the Delta variant outbreak, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo said on Thursday.

The president claimed that 29 percent of around 430,000 hospital beds countrywide were occupied, down sharply from 80 percent when the number of Covid-19 patients surged dramatically as the Delta variant began to rage early last month.

"The national hospital bed occupancy rate was at 68 percent in December last year and then fell to 29 percent in May. But it rose dramatically to nearly 80 percent in mid-July and even several hospitals reached their capacity because of the Delta variant," Jokowi said when opening the gathering of Indonesian economists through a video conference in Jakarta.

"Thankfully the BOR has now dropped to 29 percent."

Jokowi said occupancy levels at the makeshift Covid-19 hospital in Jakarta's athletes village also fell further to just 12 percent at present. The makeshift hospital is the country's largest Covid-19 isolation facility capable of housing more than 3,000 patients.

But the president cautioned that the crisis is far from over.

"We must remain vigilant and very cautious in taking any policy. This thing called Covid-19 is very unpredictable, especially after the Delta variant arrived," Jokowi said.

The daily tally of new Covid-19 cases is highly fluctuating in the country but in general it represents a steady decline compared to last month.

It has recorded 16,899 new cases in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of cases to 4,043,736, according to Health Ministry data.

A further 889 patients have died from the disease in the one-day period, meaning that the country now has more than 130,000 Covid-19 deaths since the pandemic began.

Indonesia has been averaging more than 1,000 Covid-19 deaths since July 16, the highest fatality rate in the world at the current stage of the pandemic.

Recoveries have been outnumbering newly cases since August 4 to reduce the number of active cases and hospital loads. The total number of active cases now stands at 243,588.

Nearly 59.5 million citizens have been partially vaccinated and 33.4 million of them fully vaccinated to date.

Source: https://jakartaglobe.id/news/hospital-bed-occupancy-rates-fall-to-29pct-presiden