Indonesia records highest single-day COVID-19 deaths

JAKARTA, Indonesia

Indonesia on Tuesday reported its highest number of deaths since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic with 2,069 cases.

It is the first time that deaths have crossed 2,000 in a single day, bringing the number of fatalities to 86,835.

"Unfortunately, the number of deaths due to Covid-19 continues to increase," spokesman for the COVID-19 Handling Task Force, Wiku Adisasmito, said at a news conference.

Positive cases increased 45,203 to 3,239,936, according to data from the Health Ministry.

Indonesia is experiencing a spike in cases since June due to the outbreak of the Delta variant which has caused health facilities to experience a crisis.

Indonesia has injected 63.9 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine as of Monday, consisting of 45.2 million first doses and 18.6 million second doses.

The country is targeting as many as 208.26 million people to receive the vaccine to achieve herd immunity.

* Writing by Nazarudin Latief from Anadolu Agency's Indonesian language services in Jakarta