Heru Andriyanto, Jakarta – The number of coronavirus cases continued to surge in Indonesia on Tuesday after the country saw the highest single-month rise in August, with Jakarta remaining the biggest contributor in newly confirmed cases.

Bali, which has shown an initial success in containing the outbreak, began to see resurgence in cases, signaling that it will emerge as new hotspot along with East Kalimantan and North Sumatra.

Indonesia reported 2,775 new cases of the virus in the 24-hour period to take its total to 177,571, including 7,505 deaths.

For eight consecutive days, daily cases in the country have never fallen to below 2,300. With this rate, the country will top 200,000 cases before the midpoint of the month.

Jakarta added 901 new cases and has been leading the national count since August 6 without a break. It became the first province to report more than 1,000 cases in a single day two days ago. The capital has totaled 40,987 cases as of Tuesday.

New cases aren't slowing in East Java either, with 350 more cases for a total of 33,893. East Java is where the virus has claimed more lives than in other provinces. It reported the highest daily death toll on Tuesday, with 26 deaths for a total of 2,396. In comparison, the total death toll in Jakarta stood at 1,214.

Central Java became the third province to report more than 1,000 deaths since the outbreak. It added 14 more deaths on Tuesday for a total of 1,012.Its total number of confirmed coronavirus cases is at a distant third with 14,164 overall, 200 more from yesterday.

New cases returned to the two-digit territory in South Sulawesi, with 79 more cases for a total of 12,057.

West Java is closing in with 215 new cases, bringing its total number of confirmed cases to 11,278. The surge in the country's most populous province has outpaced that of Central Java and South Sulawesi since last month.

Apart from the top five provinces, no other province has accumulated more than 10,000 cases.

However, North Sumatra, East Kalimantan and Bali could potentially complicate further the national attempts to flatten the curve as they began to see an upward trend.

North Sumatra has been experiencing a faster growth of cases than other hotspots like South Sulawesi and South Kalimantan throughout August. It reported 115 new cases in the first day of the month, taking its total to 6,942.

Bali became the eighth and last province so far to accumulate more than 5,000 cases late last month and it added 160 more on Tuesday for a total of 5,367.

With huge reliance on the tourism sector, Bali is the hardest hit by the economic impact of the pandemic, with its economy contracting by more than 10 percent in the second quarter.

Total cases in East Kalimantan stood at a mere 525 on July 1, but on Tuesday it reported a total of 4,305 cases.

The number of recovered Covid-19 patients increased by 2,098 nationwide, bringing the total number of recoveries to 128,057 or 72.1 percent of the total cases. The country has around 42,000 active cases of coronavirus as of Tuesday.

Source: https://jakartaglobe.id/news/jakarta-leads-daily-count-bali-sees-resurgence-in-coronavirus-cases