Beneath a tree on a street corner in the Indonesian city of Semarang, a pedicab driver was found lifeless inside his vehicle on July 1. The cause of death, according to local media, was covid-19.
A day later, Jane Shalimar, a 41-year-old politician, singer and actress, succumbed to the virus in a hospital in the capital, Jakarta.
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The deaths of the pedicab driver, whose identity has not been established, and a middle-class singer who had access to health care underscore Indonesia’s runaway pandemic, as the delta variant overwhelms hospitals and depletes oxygen supplies. The highly transmissible version of the coronavirus is fueling a wave of suffering across the region, including in Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia, where vaccine rollouts lag behind most developed nations.
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In Indonesia, health workers are among the hardest hit, despite being prioritized for vaccinations. Some 1,311 have died of covid-19 since March last year, according to the Indonesian Medical Association’s risk mitigation team. They include 544 doctors, 57 dentists, 432 nurses, 228 midwives, 25 medical laboratory workers and 25 pharmacists.
‘There’s no virus here’: An epic vaccine race against all odds in Indonesia
Total cases stand at 2.8 million, according to the Health Ministry, with 72,000 fatalities. The country on Saturday reported 51,952 new infections and 1,092 deaths, having overtaken India in daily cases to become the epicenter of the pandemic in Asia. But that’s probably an undercount.
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“The real number is about four times more than that,” said Dicky Budiman, an epidemiologist at the Center for Environment and Population Health at Australia’s Griffith University. “The major factor for the surge is the delta variant.”
Budiman said the crisis is especially acute on densely populated Java island because of “loose” restrictions on movement. Highly mobile young people get infected and then spread it to the vulnerable, including the elderly, he said.
Indonesia aims to vaccinate roughly three-quarters of its 270 million people by early next year, but so far, only about 6 percent have been fully inoculated. About 119 million doses of the Sinovac and AstraZeneca vaccines had arrived by the end of last month, well below what is needed to reach herd immunity.
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Over 3 million doses of the Moderna vaccine from the United States received this month will be prioritized for health workers as a third, or booster, vaccination, the official Antara news agency reported. Moderna doses are delivered through the global Covax initiative.
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Officials imposed a partial lockdown on July 3 until July 20 in Jakarta and across Java, as well as on the tourist island of Bali. All employees in nonessential industries must work from home, while half of those in industries deemed essential, including finance, can work in an office.
Muhammad Habib Abiyan Dzakwan, a researcher for the disaster management research unit of the Jakarta-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said many hospitals are swamped and can no longer accept patients.
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“It’s frustrating, if not catastrophic. I am not trying to exaggerate the situation, but we, Indonesia, might no longer be just a hot spot, we might be a burned spot,” Habib said. “Beds are full, health workers are infected with covid-19. Oxygen supplies, ventilators are depleting. I don’t know how to describe it other than the health-care system is collapsing.”
Dozens of coronavirus patients die in Indonesian hospital amid oxygen shortages
When Shalimar fell ill, friends and relatives spent hours trying to find a hospital with a spare bed to take her in.
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“Even after she was admitted, she spent hours in the corridor of the hospital before she could get a bed,” said her friend and former political colleague Imelda Sari.
The hospital had run out of oxygen, and Shalimar’s friends had to scout around Jakarta in search of more. They managed to get two tanks for about $80 each.
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Shalimar was able to secure a bed, but many cannot and are self-isolating at home, without medical aid.
At least 548 people have died in self-isolation in recent weeks, according to Lapor Covid-19, a coalition of civil society organizations that crowdsources coronavirus information.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Ahmad Arif, a co-founder of the group, who added that some died in cars while trying to reach hospitals.
For the poor, self-isolation is near impossible as many live in tiny, cramped living quarters.
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“In the case of pedicabs, like the [driver] who died, many don’t even have a home and sleep in their pedicab,” Ahmad said.
The government is building emergency hospitals to cope with the surge in patients and has ordered more oxygen. But it acknowledges containment measures are not stopping the spread of the virus because mobility has not dropped sufficiently.
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“Our hospitals can’t endure it anymore if we fail to reduce movement by at least 20 percent,” Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said in a hearing with lawmakers last week, according to Bloomberg News.
Hundreds of Thais inoculated with Sinovac are infected as cases spike in Southeast Asia
Outside of Java and Bali, provincial regions are also experiencing a surge in cases but receiving less attention.
Kudus, in Central Java, managed to bring down the number of new cases, and its status as a red zone was lifted recently. But many of the city’s health workers were found to be infected.
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Ahmad Syaifuddin, director of the Islamic Sunan Kudus Hospital, said about 10 percent, or 800 health-care workers, in Kudus tested positive and had to be isolated in late May.
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“This brought an extra burden for those who are still working,” he said.
Ahmad, who has received two Sinovac shots, was infected in May. He said he suffered only mild symptoms.
Since February, 184 doctors died of covid-19, of whom at least 20 had been fully vaccinated with Sinovac, the Indonesian Medical Association’s risk mitigation team said.
Budiman, the epidemiologist, said the government is not doing enough testing to trace and isolate infected people. He expects daily deaths to peak at up to 2,300 a day by late July or early August.
‘There’s no virus here’: An epic vaccine race against all odds in Indonesia
Dozens of coronavirus patients die in Indonesian hospital amid oxygen shortages
Hundreds of Thais inoculated with Sinovac are infected as cases spike in Southeast Asia