The Indonesian Situation: COVID-19 Confirmed Cases and Deaths
Although these graphs will display information from January 2020 until June 2021, the timeline for this project is January to April 2020.
Indonesia confirmed its first case of COVID-19 on March 2, 2020, with two positive cases in West Java. Almost a month after the first two cases in Indonesia, they had 1,667 cases on April 1, 2020. By April 15th there were 5,136 cases and nearly 15 days later, at the end of the timeline, on May 1, 2020 cases had more than doubled to 10,551 COVID-19 cases in Indonesia.
Indonesia did not adequately prepare for the pandemic despite World Health Organization advisories. Consequently, they faced an uphill battle combatting the COVID-19 pandemic. A combination of factors worsened the situation that President Widodo and the Indonesian government faced while confronting COVID-19. In addition to lack of preparation by the Indonesian government, President Widodo also remained secretive and ambiguous in his responses and handling of the pandemic to avoid public panic (Regions Push for Social Distancing as Central Gov’t Prioritizes Avoiding Panic Amid Pandemic, 2020). Other factors included: a large population of smokers, inadequate public health institutions and management, and regional disparities within the public health system. As a result, Indonesia quickly obtained the highest COVID-19 mortality rate in Asia by the end of April, about only two months after their first case (Indonesia Currently Has Highest Covid-19 Mortality Rate in Asia, 2020).
The first death from COVID-19 was on March 11, 2020. By April 1st, this quickly increased to 157 deaths in Indonesia and had almost tripled to 469 cases on April 15th, 2020. By the end of the timeline, on May 1, 2020, 800 deaths had occurred in Indonesia. Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, became the epicenter of the virus, with “nearly half of the confirmed cases nationwide” which contributed to the eight to nine percent mortality rate by the end of April (Jakarta Extends Restrictions Until May 22, 2020).
Indonesia's mortality rate starkly contrasted the mortality rates in the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, and South Korea. Each of these countries simultaneously had mortality rates under three percent (Indonesia Currently Has Highest Covid-19 Mortality Rate in Asia, 2020). By April 21st, 2020, Achmad Yurianto, the spokesman for the COVID-19 Task Force, announced that all 34 of the provinces in Indonesia had confirmed cases of COVID-19. (Indonesia Reports 375 New Coronavirus Cases as Infection Rate Continues to Fluctuate, 2020).