Indonesia's COVID-19 Cases Predicted to Reach Millions

Several epidemiologists, Iwan Ariawan and his team from the Faculty of Public Health, University of Indonesia (UI), have made several estimations regarding Covid-19. Their study estimates that the number of patients requiring hospitalization would range from hundreds of thousands to millions by day 70 (mid-May). This estimation is based on the government's actions.

The first assumption is that the Covid-19 disease emerged in early February 2020. Government intervention measures were implemented two months after the first appearance of the disease. This research focuses on patients requiring hospitalization due to pneumonia, needing ICU care, and those at high risk of death.

Iwan advises everyone to prepare for the worst-case scenario of the Covid-19 outbreak. The team predicts that without government intervention, there would be a surge in patients reaching 2.5 million. According to Iwan, the government is currently at a low intervention level, namely social restrictions, thus predicting 1.8 million people requiring intensive hospital care by mid-May.

Medium intervention, meaning low-coverage mass testing and social restrictions, is predicted by the team to result in 1.2 million people requiring hospitalization. High intervention, including regional quarantines and mass testing, would reduce the number of those requiring intensive care to at least 600,000.

[Read: Latest Developments in Corona Cases in Indonesia (Tuesday, 31/3)]