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 Police in the port area of Tanjung Priok said they responded on
Monday to a call about a COVID-19 corpse, wrapped in a white shroud,
left on the doorstep of a North Jakarta home.
Not authorised to handle coronavirus victims, officers called the
local taskforce, but were told there would be a wait.
“That body was eighth in the queue because the Jakarta COVID-19
taskforce was handling other victims,” said Ghulam Pasaribu, Tanjung
Priok Police chief.
The body, he said, was collected at 1.30 am on Tuesday, more than 13
hours later.
It was one of 143 burials in Jakarta that day – the most since the
pandemic began - according to Ivan Nurcahyo at Jakarta's parks
department, which handles cemeteries and burials.
The same day in another part of town, a 69-year-old grandmother who
tested positive had to take public transport to a hospital, after
her family failed to find an ambulance, television station MetroTV
said.
The stories offer a window into the strains on Indonesia’s fragile
healthcare system as case numbers and deaths mount.
Indonesia recorded 14,536 new coronavirus cases on Monday, the
highest daily increase since the pandemic began.
The country has identified 2,018,113 cases and 55,291 deaths, the
highest in the region, although the true figures are likely far
higher.
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 Public health experts attribute
the spike to increased mobility over the Muslim
Eid Al-Fitr holiday, and the spread of the
highly contagious Delta variant.
More than 100 cases of the Delta variant have
been identified across the archipelago, with
outbreaks in Java pushing hospital occupancy
past 90% in some areas. Despite
being fully vaccinated, at least 10 doctors have died from the
disease, according to the Indonesian Medical Association, while
hundreds have tested positive.
In Jakarta, cases are also rising. On May 22, Jakarta reported 932
new cases, but that more than tripled to 3,221 on June 22, according
to official data.
Beds at ICUs in 140 COVID-19 referral hospitals in Jakarta were 81%
full on June 20, while isolation rooms were at 90% capacity, said Dr
Sulung Mulia Putra, from the Jakarta health agency.
"We still have to face a difficult test because these past few days
the COVID-19 pandemic has flared up again," President Joko Widodo
said on Wednesday. "This disease does not discriminate."
(Reporting by Agustinus Beo Da Costa and Stanley Widianto in
Jakarta, and Kate Lamb in Sydney; Editing by Giles Elgood)
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