Jakarta. The number of Covid-19 cases in Indonesia continues to increase sharply, again breaking the record for the highest single-day rise on Monday with 218 new cases.

This brings the country's total confirmed coronavirus cases to 2,491.

Eleven more patients died since Sunday to bring the total death toll to 209, while 28 patients recovered to increase the total number of recoveries to 192.

"The new positive cases were confirmed through PCR [Polymerase Chain Reaction] testing, better known as the swab test, performed by taking fluid samples from the respiratory tract," the government's Covid-19 Task Force spokesman Achmad Yurianto said in a teleconference in Jakarta.

He also said the government has so far conducted 11,242 Covid-19 tests and 80 percent of them came back negative.

Since Indonesia has a population of more than 272 million, this means so far the government has only done 41 tests per one million of the population.

Although the number of Covid-19 tests in the country is low, it has shown progress since March 1 when the ratio was at one test per one million of the population to 25 tests per one million of the population by the end of the month.

On Sunday, 50,000 Covid-19 test kits from South Korea arrived at the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang.

The Indonesian Embassy in Seoul said the PCR testing kids had been donated by the LG Group. 

Indonesia has been conducting rapid testing for Covid-19 that uses blood samples to detect antibodies. If the result came back positive, the patient will get a PCR testing to confirm the presence of Covid-19. If the result was negative, the rapid test will be repeated within ten days.

Since the beginning of April, the government has been increasing the number of the Covid-19 tests daily. On April 1 to 3, the average number of testing was just above 200. It conducted 1,726 tests on Saturday and 1,530 on Sunday.

Cases Without Symptoms

Achmad said the number of cases is still increasing because there are still sources of transmission that are difficult to pinpoint, particularly from people without symptoms.

"[The surge in confirmed cases] proves that transmission is still happening across the country. There are positive cases with no symptoms. People contract the virus because they do not wash their hands. We have to be disciplined, maintain good basic hygiene, observe physical distancing and cancel our [Idul Fitri] exodus," he said.

China's National Health Commission on Monday reported they had identified 78 new cases of Covid-19 without symptoms, up from 47 cases the previous day. New cases of transmission from patients who have no symptoms but carry the virus have become a new concern in recent weeks.

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