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Jakarta to ease curbs as Covid-19 cases, hospital admissions fall: Sources

Source
Straits Times - August 9, 2021

Wahyudi Soeriaatmadja, Jakarta – Indonesia's capital Jakarta is set to ease Covid-19 curbs from Tuesday (Aug 10), allowing shopping malls and restaurants in the city to reopen with limited capacity as the numbers of confirmed cases and hospital admissions continue to fall.

Government sources told The Straits Times that improving indicators and ramped-up vaccinations means Jakarta is well placed to lower its control measures to the next level.

"Jakarta's indicators are improving. Active cases, positivity rate, bed occupancy ratio is all on the downtrend," a government official told ST.

The city of 11 million people has been on level four of containment measures since July 3. Malls and restaurants have been shut, with only takeaways allowed, while non-essential workers have been required to work from home.

Easing restrictions to level three will mean shopping malls and stand-alone restaurants can open at 25 per cent capacity, while 25 per cent of non-essential workers can return to work from the office.

As at Sunday, the occupancy rate of Covid-19 isolation wards in Jakarta's hospitals has fallen to 39 per cent, while the occupancy rate for intensive care units (ICUs) has fallen to 65 per cent. Occupancy levels reached above 90 per cent in July, at the peak of the capital's fight against the more transmissible Delta variant of the virus.

Meanwhile, the city's positivity rate, which measures the percentage of people who test positive for Covid-19, was recorded at 10.2 per cent last Saturday. The government had previously said a positivity rate of 10 per cent or lower was one of the requisite conditions for controls to be eased to level three.

About 42 per cent of Jakartans have been fully vaccinated and above 90 per cent of them have received their first vaccine shots.

However many other regions in Java and Bali, which collectively make up 60 per cent of Indonesia's population of 271 million, are expected remain on level four restrictions.

"Many other regions in Java and Bali would continue to be on level four. Jakarta would be lowered to level three," another government official told ST.

Source: https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/jakarta-to-ease-curbs-as-covid-19-cases-hospital-admissions-fall-source

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