balinews
JAKARTA - Indonesia's government, in a single-minded effort to ward off public panic, remains reluctant to reveal the full geographic breadth of its Covid-19 outbreak in the wide-reaching archipelago's 34 provinces.The only publicly acknowledged cases outside of the heavily-populated island of Java so far have been in West and North Sumatra, Lampung, Riau, West and East Kalimantan, North Sulawesi and Bali.Health Ministry officials are giving only daily updates on the total number of patients, with the official tally now at 309 and climbing steadily by the day."I think it's widespread across the archipelago, but while it is particularly prevalent in urban centers like Jakarta and Bali, it does not appear to be showing up so much among younger people below the age of 30," one senior Western diplomat told Asia Times.With the death toll rising from 12 to 25 in the past two days, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security puts Indonesia's mortality rate at more than 8%, the highest in the world ahead of even Italy, Iran, China, Japan, and Spain.[URL]https://asiatimes.com/2020/03/why-indonesia-has-worlds-highest-covid-19-death-rate/[/URL]
