National Covid-19 cases rose by 17 percent in the past week. This data was confirmed by the Coordinator of the Expert Team and Government Spokesperson for Handling Covid-19, Wiku Adisasmito.
However, it is not certain whether the addition is related to the emergence of the Omicron XBB subvariant Coronavirus.
In a virtual press statement, Thursday (27/10/2022), Wiku explained that compared to several other countries in Asia, Indonesia is still a country with a lower weekly addition of cases, which is 14,000 in one week. This figure is much smaller than Japan which reached 200 thousand cases.
“However, we still need to be vigilant considering that in the last four weeks there has been a 17 percent increase in weekly positive cases in Indonesia, 11 percent daily active cases, and more than 100 deaths per week,” said Wiku.
“The Covid-19 cases increase in Indonesia at this time cannot be determined whether it is the result of the XBB subvariance. However, the threat of new variants remains during relatively low cases,” he continued.
Therefore, Wiku said that the community bears the greatest responsibility for preventing Covid-19. For this reason, the community needs to maintain health, implement clean and healthy living behaviors, continue to wear masks, and diligently wash hands are the keys to keeping cases low.
As previously reported, It is stated, Spokesperson for the Ministry of Health, Mohammad Syahril, said that as many as 24 countries had reported findings of the XBB variant of Omicron, including Indonesia.
The increase in XBB cases in Singapore is even faster than the previous variants, namely BA.5 and BA.2.
“The increase in cases of the XBB wave in Singapore is fast and has reached 0.79 times the BA.5 wave and 0.46 times the BA.2 wave,” said Syahril in a press release, Saturday (10/22/2022).
The first case of XBB in Indonesia was a local transmission, detected in a 29-year-old woman who had just returned from Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara.
“There are symptoms such as cough, runny nose, and fever. He then underwent an examination and tested positive on September 26. After undergoing isolation, the patient has been declared cured on October 3, “explained Syahril.
Following this finding, the Ministry of Health rushed to take anticipatory efforts by testing and tracing 10 close contacts. As a result, all close contacts tested negative for the XBB variant of Covid-19.
Although the new XBB variant spreads quickly, Syahril said the fatality was no more severe than the Omicron variant. However, the country cannot be said to be safe from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Therefore, various mutations of new variants still have the potential to continue to occur. In the last seven days also reported an increase in cases in 24 provinces.
