A COVID-19 patient is treated at a hospital in Bogor, Indonesia. (Photo: AFP/VNA) Jakarta (VNA) – Indonesia on July 15 set a new record with 56,757 new infections confirmed in the last 24 hours, raising the national tally to 2,726,803.
This is the second consecutive day the country registered over 50,000 new cases and the government has prepared a scenario for over 100,000 COVID-19 cases per day. As many as 982 more people died of the disease on the day, bring the death toll to 70,192 and at least 480,199 patients are undergoing treatment at hospital or home.
Despite efforts of the government in imposing the Community Activities Restrictions Enforcement (PPKM) in the two crowded islands of Java and Bali and expanding to 15 neighbouring localities, the number of new cases is still on the rise. Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment Luhut Pandjaitan argued that Indonesia is facing a “different enemy” and vaccines are less effective against the Delta variant, which accounts for the majority of COVID-19 cases on Java island.
Up to now, over 39.6 million Indonesians have been administrated one COVID-19 vaccine dose and 15.8 others got their second shot.
Of the same day, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has approved a 500 million USD loan for Indonesia's SAR-CoV-2 response.
In the released statement, the AIIB's main investment operations specialist Toshiaki Keicho said the loan will be used for three main activities, namely strengthening the readiness of health systems and hospitals to handle COVID-19 complications and vaccination, especially for women and vulnerable groups; enhancing the capacity of public health laboratories and supply chains; and supporting communication, coordinating emergency response and vaccine distribution.
Earlier, the AIIB provided two loans to aid Indonesia's coronavirus response, bringing to the bank's total funding for the country to 1.5 billion USD./.
