Concerns are mounting in Indonesia over the ability of its regions to cope with a spike in coronavirus cases, according to its health minister, as the highly transmissible Delta variant spreads quickly across the world’s largest archipelago.
Indonesia is struggling to slow the pace of COVID-19 transmission, with record daily case numbers on six of the past 10 days, including 47,899 new infections on Tuesday, despite new containment measures.
The Delta variant first identified in India has been found in 11 areas outside of the densely populated Java island, health minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said.
Cases and bed occupancy rates have risen in parts of Sumatra, Papua and Kalimantan, or Indonesian Borneo, and far-flung regions like West Papua were especially concerning, he told parliament this week.
“We must monitor this tightly, because if there’s something happening there, their health capacities are below Jakarta or Java,” Budi said.
In East Nusa Tenggara, infections have more than…