JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com \- The number of daily confirmed Covid-19 cases in Indonesia increased by 6,699 on Friday, Nov. 18, bringing the total number of cases reported in the country to 6,596,812 since March 2020.
The Covid-19 Handling Task Force data said that Indonesia recorded 5,854 additional recoveries on Friday, bringing the cumulative number of recoveries to 6,376,205. Meanwhile, the number of deaths increased by 32 to reach 159,323.
The province that contributed the most additional cases on Friday was Jakarta (2,798 cases), followed by West Java (1,239 cases), Banten (722 cases), East Java (656 cases), and Central Java (364 cases).
Also read: Indonesia Reports 8 Cases of XBB Covid Variant
In addition, the number of active cases increased by 813 on Friday. The number of active cases reflects the number of patients undergoing quarantine or treatment for the SARS-CoV-2 type coronavirus.
Though the government has relaxed several restrictions that it had imposed to prevent the transmission of Covid-19, it has continued to carry out efforts to prevent and control the spread of the disease, including vaccinations.
The government has urged citizens to take the third or booster dose of the Covid-19 vaccine to increase their immunity against the virus.
According to a spokesperson for the Health Ministry Mohammad Syahril, Omicron’s XBB and BQ.1 sub-variants have begun to dominate Covid-19 cases in Indonesia.
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"The new sub-variants, XBB and BQ.1, have 25 percent of the proportion of cases. Later, it can shift as the previous variant," he said.
The ministry said the new variants were detected for the first time in Indonesia on Sept. 25, with 37 cases of XBB and 50 cases of BQ.1 recorded as of Sept. 30.
The cases were detected in 10 provinces of Indonesia: Bali, Jakarta, West Java, Central Java, East Java, West Kalimantan, Babel Islands, Lampung, North Sumatra, and Riau.
In the past month, hospitals have received around 10,000 patients, with five percent of them treated in the intensive care unit and the rest treated in wards, Syahril added.
Source: State News Antara
