Jakarta (ANTARA) - Indonesia recorded 32,211 new positive COVID-19 cases on Friday, with Jakarta clocking the highest daily cases at 13,379, according to the COVID-19 Task Force.

The daily COVID-19 cases represented a significant increase compared to an increase of 27,197 cases the day before.

With the addition of 32,211 cases, the number of Indonesian people who have tested positive for the coronavirus reached 4,446,694 since the first confirmed COVID-19 case was detected in the country in March 2020.

By Friday, the number of active cases or patients receiving medical treatment in Jakarta crossed 55,427.

On the national scale, the number of active cases rose by 24,979 to touch 140,254.

The number of people succumbing to the infection increased by 42, taking the total COVID-19 death toll to 144,452.

Meanwhile, the recovery rate rose by 7,190, taking total recoveries since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic to 4,161,987.

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The daily positivity rate for specimens stood at 13.41 percent, while the daily positivity rate among people was recorded at 10.29 percent.

Meanwhile, 22,008 people were suspected to have contracted the infection based on 480,920 specimens tested in laboratory networks throughout Indonesia.

According to Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin, the peak of COVID-19 cases caused by the Omicron variant could be up to six times higher than that recorded during the Delta outbreak.

"The transmission is very high and Indonesia will definitely experience this. If the previous peak of cases hit 57 thousand, in the future, we need to be more careful," he cautioned.

"In some other countries, (the Omicron peak rate) has been three to six times compared to the peak of cases due to the Delta variant," he noted at an online press conference recently

He said that the number of cases in the United States reached 800 thousand per day during the Omicron outbreak compared to 250 thousand cases per day during the Delta outbreak.

In France, the number of cases reached 360 thousand per day during the Omicron outbreak, which was more than the 60 thousand cases per day recorded during the Delta outbreak, he added.

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Translator: Devi Nindy SR, Suharto
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
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