Jakarta. Coronavirus is still raging on in Indonesia with 2,345 new cases on Saturday to bring the total number of confirmed cases to 137,468, including 6,071 deaths. For the first time since the outbreak, the daily count has exceeded 2,000 cases for three consecutive days.

The country has added more than 29,000 cases halfway through the month, spurred by a spike in worst-hit provinces like Jakarta, East Java and Central Java, while North Sumatra and West Java began to emerge as new hotspots.

Jakarta reported 583 new cases to take its total to 28,882, with six more Covid-19 deaths to bring the total death toll to 980.

The capital city has been averaging around 500 cases from August 1 to the midpoint of the month. It has outpaced East Java since mid-July and emerged as the province with the most cases last week.

East Java recorded 436 cases, its highest daily rise in 12 days, for a total of 27,415 cases. It has the highest daily death toll of the day, with 21 deaths for a total of 1,988. New infections are still growing in the province, which averages 355 cases per day so far this month, higher than the daily average of 318 in July.

Apart from East Java and Jakarta, West Java was the province with the fastest growth of new infections midway through this month, in which it has registered 1,980 cases — more than the figures in Central Java, South Sulawesi and North Sumatra.

It added 237 cases on Saturday, bringing the total number of cases to 8,512. While it remains as the fifth province with the most cases, the pace of new infection in West Java is alarming. It averages 132 cases in August, higher than the daily average of all other provinces but Jakarta and East Java.

Central Java, the third most-affected province, reported 130 new cases for a total of 11,471, including 780 deaths. Like West Java, the province has reported a three-digit daily figure for the fourth day in a row.

South Sulawesi added 102 new cases — the first time this week it saw daily cases above 100 — for a total of 10,895. The province managed to reduce the daily average to two digits this month as the growth in new cases began to slow down late last month, when it dropped to the fourth place among most affected provinces.

South Kalimantan also began to show progress in containing the spread of the virus, averaging just 64 cases per day this month. It now has a total of 7,051 cases.

On the other hand, Covid-19 cases continued to surge in North Sumatra this month, with an average of 113 cases per day. On July 1, the province had only around 1,600 cases, but the figure has soared to 5,622 cases today — an increase by around 250 percent.

Only six of the country’s 34 provinces have reported more than 5,000 cases overall.

The number of cured Covid-19 patients has increased by 1,703 in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of recoveries to 91,321 countrywide, or 66.4 percent of total cases.

Southeast Asia’s biggest country still has more than 40,000 active coronavirus cases to deal with. / BY :HERU ANDRIYANTO

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8.16.2020