Expert Reveals Similarities in India-Indonesia Covid-19 Cases

TheIndonesia.id - Tjandra Yoga Aditama, a professor at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Indonesia, revealed the similarity of Covid-19 transmission pattern occurred in India and Indonesia. He said, the Covid-19 cases in both countries slowly declined because almost all of the citizens had been infected. 

Tjandra, in a webinar themed "Strategies to Prevent the 3rd Wave and New Variant of COVID-19 during Christmas and New Year's Holidays," told that research of COVID-19 antibody tests in two of Indian's major cities, New Delhi and Mumbai, showed that almost every citizen was infected.

"The research of the antibody test showed that 90 percent of people in New Delhi has been tested positive for Covid-19, while in Mumbai, 86 percent has been tested positive," said Tjandra, quoted by Antara news agency.

Tjandra analyzed that the number of people infected in the two big cities showed Indian success to reduce the rate of Covid-19 infection significantly. New cases have also continued to decline lately.

Tjandra, who has lived in India to serve as Director of the Southeast Asia World Health Organization (WHO), stated that the increase and decline of COVID-19 cases in India are similar to Indonesia. 

How similar is it?

Indonesia had a very significant rise case in the mid-2021. In the following two months, Covid-19 cases decreased systematically and stayed waning below 1000 cases per day from 15 October 2021. The number has persisted for a whole month.

Nevertheless, Tjandra stressed that the two-years-old Covid-19 infection is still uncertain. There is a lot of information about Covid-19 that researchers need to dig deeper to find more precise prevention and control method.

As of 16 November 2021, there are 221 new cases in Indonesia. There have been 4,251,076 infections and 143,670 coronavirus-related deaths reported in the country since the pandemic began.