VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Jakarta. Hidayatullah Muttaqin, a member of the Lampung Mangkurat University Expert Team for the COVID-19 Handling, said to keep growing the number of PCR tests for COVID-19 because new positive cases have not yet sloped down.

"The number of national PCR tests only 1.62 million people or reached 6,019 tests per one million population. This is very low if you see the trend of increasing positive cases," he said in Banjarmasin, on Friday.

Hidayatullah said the low growth of new COVID-19 cases in parts of Indonesia, including the reduced number of areas with red zone status, may be related to the low ratio of PCR tests.

This means that the growth of new cases has the potential not to reflect the growth of real cases. For this reason, increasing the number of PCR tests massively is needed to detect residents infected with COVID-19.

As of September 16, there were over 770,000 people who had undergone PCR tests, so that the test ratio had reached 72,864 per one million people.

"The massive number of tests in Jakarta is the reason why the COVID-19 in Jakarta is higher than in other areas in Indonesia. This is the right step and should be emulated by other regions," he said.

"It is time for local governments to take an open stance in their efforts to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic. Because it is getting more closed, especially allergies with the addition of new cases through massive testing, it becomes a time bomb that becomes a big threat in the future," he said.

"Besides a strict application of health protocols, population mobility control policies are very important to break the chain of transmission of COVID-19," he said. (Antaranews)