Indonesia daily COVID deaths top Brazil as the world’s highest

Published 18 Jul,2021 via Bloomberg Politics & Policy - Indonesia has topped Brazil in reporting the highest number of daily deaths attributed to Covid-19, even as new cases start to ease in the Southeast Asian country.

There were 1,093 fatalities in Indonesia in the 24 hours through midday Sunday, the government announced via Twitter. The figure a day earlier was 1,092, while on Saturday Brazil reported 868 deaths. Indonesia said Sunday that new infections were 44,721, the least in nearly a week yet still the highest in Asia.

The current coronavirus wave in Indonesia has overwhelmed hospitals and depleted the country’s oxygen supply, even as the government adds beds and imports oxygen tanks. As the delta variant spreads through Indonesia, at least 650 people have died at home while self-isolating as they couldn’t get admission to hospitals, according to crowdsourcing platform LaporCovid19.

The crisis underscores how the pandemic is picking up pace around the world even as countries like the U.K. and the U.S. ease virus restrictions. A lack of access to vaccines means rising caseloads in places like Indonesia are being followed by a surge in deaths.

There’s been more than 57 million vaccinations in Indonesia, enough to cover about 11% of its population, Bloomberg’s Vaccine Tracker shows. It’s 48% in the European Union and 53% in the U.S.

Indonesia -- the world’s fourth-most populous country -- has reported more than 2.8 million cases and 73,582 deaths overall. That’s still dwarfed by the more than 540,000 dead in Brazil. The U.S. has the highest documented cases at 34 million and deaths at 609,000.

Indonesia’s government is considering whether to extend movement restrictions set to end Tuesday.

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