Doctor’s Corner: Seeing the Development of COVID-19 in Indonesia

Yogyakarta, July 15th 2021─In order to enliven FISIPOL Healthy Campus Week 2021, FISIPOL UGM through the Wellness Center Team held the “Doctor’s Corner: COVID-19 Update” event on Thursday (15/7). The speaker in this event was dr. Muhammad Fajri Adda’i, Volunteer General Physician for COVID-19. Attended by lecturers, education staff, students, and the general public, the event took place via Live Streaming on Youtube channel of Fisipol UGM. Still in a separate series, free online and limited Doctor Consultations are also held.

It began with the exposure of the current pandemic conditions, where compliance with health protocols was decreasing, namely compliance in 20 provinces was less than 85 percent. Not only in Indonesia, but the whole world is experiencing the same thing. Plus the emergence of hoaxes that hinder the handling of COVID-19. This has an impact on increasing the number of cases, Indonesia’s latest data is 54 thousand cases recorded as of July 14th, 2021. Worse, the death in Indonesia due to COVID-19 is the largest in the world to replace India’s position. “Whatever it is, we are not talking about numbers, but we are talking about a system that is already overwhelming, already overwhelmed, and this is happening, we don’t know how long, and the horror of our deaths is the biggest in the world,” dr. Fajri said.

The increase in explosive cases is caused by poor prevention so that the health system will be overwhelmed. Marked by decreased compliance with health protocols and major post-holiday outbreaks, the development of cases always increases during holidays or collective leave. Based on data from the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Indonesia, there are 108 thousand isolation capacities in hospitals. The occupancy of beds has increased tremendously, within a month there has been an increase of 50 thousand cases in the accommodated hospitals. “The graphics are incredibly high, the hospitals in Yogyakarta are 90% full, the conditions are complicated, doctors have to choose who based on the highest healing strata,” dr. Fajri said.

This major outbreak cannot be matched by fulfilling the need for medicines. In fact, the addition of oxygen capacity is carried out by reallocating oxygen production to 90-100% industry focused on medicine. However, these steps are still not enough, dr. Fajri explained, when a person is sick with severe COVID-19, a person needs 50-60 liters of oxygen per minute.

At the end of the session, dr. Fajri explained the protocol for managing COVID-19 in Indonesia. “It’s best to self-isolate. First we don’t need to panic, calm down first, because 92% of COVID-19 will recover. Second, the CT value for the release of the isolation, we don’t need to repeat the CT value, if there are no symptoms then 10 days (isolation) is enough because this virus will disappear by itself, if you have symptoms 10 plus 3 days is enough, unless you have severe symptoms, the doctor will determine the PCR again or not,” he concluded.