Jakarta (Bloomberg) – Indonesia has tightened mobility in Jakarta, Bandung and Bali to the second-highest level as the Omicron variant of the coronavirus continued to spread rapidly.
The restrictions, which include limiting capacity at religious and other public places and reducing operating hours for supermarkets, malls and restaurants, will be implemented for at least a week, according to Mr Luhut Panjaitan, a Cabinet minister who oversees the nation's pandemic response in Java and Bali.
Daily cases in those areas have exceeded highs seen during the previous wave, he told an online briefing on Monday (Feb 7).
Testing and tracing need to improve and hospitalisation rate has to decline before the government can ease the restriction levels, with a review set for next week, said Mr Luhut.
The government has avoided lockdowns it imposed during the previous peak last year despite the rapid surge in cases to keep the pace of the economic recovery, as infections have largely been mild and hospitalisation rates manageable.The country is nearly doubling the number of hospital beds dedicated for Covid-19 patients while flagging that cases could reach as high as 285,000 a day, about five times its previous daily record.
Patients filled as many as 18,996 hospital beds out of a national capacity of 120,000 beds dedicated for Covid-19 handling, said Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin at the same briefing.
The capital Jakarta accounts for almost half the additional cases, followed by the provinces of West Java, where the city of Bandung is located, Banten, East Java and Bali.
The tighter restrictions came as Southeast Asia's biggest economy geared up for a number of international events this year, such as the MotoGP championship in March and the Group of 20 Summit in November that would generate more international arrivals.