Jakarta may soon run out of hospital beds for COVID-19 patients, the provincial government said, as it announced the latest data on medical treatment capacity in the capital.
In an Instagram post this morning, the Jakarta Provincial Government said 87 percent of hospital beds and intensive care units designated for COVID-19 patients are occupied. Twenty-four percent of the 8,890 beds and ICUs available are currently filled by residents of neighboring cities Bogor, Depok, Tangerang, and Bekasi.
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Jakarta’s occupancy rate currently exceeds those in provinces with high COVID-19 infection rates, including Banten (79 percent), Yogyakarta (78 percent), West Java (73 percent), and East Java (69 percent).
The Jakarta Provincial Government previously said it would not turn away COVID-19 patients from neighboring regions. There have been no talks of a revision to this policy despite the fact that only 13 percent of hospital beds and ICUs remain unoccupied.
Jakarta recorded 2,361 new COVID-19 cases on Jan. 18, bringing the provincial total to 229,726 — the highest in all of Indonesia. However, it must be noted that Jakarta has tested people at a far higher rate of 225,910 per 1 million people compared to Indonesia’s average of 20,615 per million. The capital’s positivity rate over the past week is also lower at 17.9 percent compared to the national rate of 27.2 percent.
It’s not all doom and gloom as Jakarta’s active cases rate has been gradually decreasing in the past couple of days after it shot up following the Christmas and New Year holidays. The capital currently has on record 21,200 COVID-19 patients in hospital treatment or self-isolation.
