Indonesia added the highest number of Covid-19 cases in almost six months as the more transmissible Omicron variant spreads throughout the country.
The government reported 27,197 new infections on Thursday, the most since Aug 14. Daily deaths reached the highest since Oct 21 as 38 people succumbed to the disease. Cases have picked up rapidly from less than a hundred in late December.
Indonesia is refraining from imposing strict movement limits despite the surge in infections, resorting instead to calling people to avoid gatherings and reducing in-person schooling to half capacity. The government is nearly doubling the number of hospital beds dedicated for Covid-19 handling as it braces for cases to reach as high as 285,000 a day.