Ahead of the Christmas and New Year holidays, Indonesia's Covid-19 cases drop 41% in a week.

COVID-19 cases in Indonesia have shown a downward trend in the lead-up to the Christmas and New Year holidays (Nataru). According to Worldometers, Indonesia reported 10,391 new COVID-19 cases between December 13-19, 2022.

This represents a 41% decrease compared to the previous week, which saw 17,578 cases. Indonesia ranked 7th in Asia for the highest number of new COVID-19 cases in the past week.

Japan remained at the top with 1,054,202 new cases between December 13-19, 2022, a 22% increase from the previous week. South Korea was second with 460,766 new cases. Hong Kong and Taiwan reported 108,577 and 107,387 new cases respectively during the same period.

China and Israel recorded 15,141 and 10,852 new cases respectively. Below Indonesia were Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines with 8,269, 7,141, and 7,054 new cases respectively.

The declining trend in COVID-19 cases in Indonesia has led the government to express optimism that the spread of the coronavirus is increasingly under control, particularly during the upcoming Christmas and New Year 2023 celebrations.

“It’s all about our collective control. The public is increasingly confident in self-control, group control, event organizers, and the police are also reminding people (of health protocols); that’s what we call gotong royong (mutual cooperation),” said COVID-19 Task Force spokesperson Prof. Wiku Adisasmito, as quoted by Antara on Monday (December 19).

Similarly, the Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Culture, Muhadjir Effendy, stated that the government will allow free celebrations for Christmas 2022 and New Year 2023. He explained that this is because the pandemic curve has flattened, although the pandemic status has not yet ended.

"Not yet (the pandemic status hasn't ended), but it has flattened significantly, the death rate is very low, and hospital occupancy is also low, so we are confident that we will celebrate Christmas and New Year 2022-2023 as festively as possible," said Muhadjir, as quoted by Detik.com on Saturday (December 17).