Jakarta (ANTARA) - Indonesia recorded 40,489 positive COVID-19 cases on Friday, with Jakarta chalking up the highest number of daily cases at 10,707, the Health Ministry informed.

West Java logged the second-highest number of daily cases at 8,945 cases, followed by Banten, which recorded 5,218 cases, the ministry said in a press statement released on Friday.

East Java was next with 4,506 cases, followed by Central Java with 2,651 cases.

The ministry also pegged the number of COVID-19 deaths at 100 on Friday, with 39 fatalities reported in Jakarta, 13 in Bali, 12 in Central Java, 10 in East Java, and 8 in West Java.

Meanwhile, the number of patients recovering from COVID-19 on Friday stood at 15,767, with Jakarta clocking 7,400 recoveries, East Java 2,869, Banten 1,917, West Java 1,590, and Central Java 695.

On the national scale, the number of active cases or patients receiving treatment rose by 24,622 to reach 312,808 on Friday.

At least 363,565 specimens were tested at laboratories across the country on Friday, with the positivity rate pegged at 22.13 percent.

The recent spike in COVID-19 cases has been attributed to the emergence of the Omicron variant.

Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said the peak of COVID-19 cases caused by the Omicron variant could be up to six times higher than the Delta peak.

"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.

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"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 surge, which was more than the 60 thousand cases per day recorded during the Delta wave, he added.

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Translator: Anita Permata D, Suharto
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
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