Indonesia’s COVID-19 cases pass 3-mln mark amid second wave
Indonesia has registered more than 3 million cases of COVID-19 since the first case was confirmed in the country in March last year.
The country's Health Ministry reported on Thursday that the coronavirus cases across the archipelago rose by 49,509 within the past 24 hours to 3,033,339.
According to the ministry, the death toll added by 1,449 to 79,032. This has been the high-est daily number of fatalities the country ever reported since the outbreak of the pandemic.
To date, more than 2.39 mil-lion have recovered from the disease.
Indonesia has the highest number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in Southeast Asia. The virus has spread to all the country's 34 provinces and the more transmissible virus Delta variant has contributed to the surge in COVID-19 cases in some of the country's regions. The national capital Jakarta had the most cases, while East Java had the highest number of deaths.
The government recently decided to extend its restrictions on people's mobility, which is locally called PPKM, on the most populated island Java and the resort spot of Bali as well as 15 other cities and districts outside the two islands until July 25. Initially, the curbs were in place from July 3 to July 20.
The restrictions require workers in nonessential sectors to work from home, malls and shopping centers to close, and restaurants to stop dine-in services.
A massive COVID-19 vacci-nation program has been launched in Indonesia, home to more than 270 million people, since mid-January.
The government is targeting to vaccinate 208.2 million people using vaccines produced by a number of pharmaceutical manufacturers. The vaccine is free of charge for all Indonesians.
Indonesia on Thursday re-ceived a new shipment of raw materials from China to produce vaccine.
Xinhua