Grocery stores and supermarkets on Indonesia's Java and Bali islands yesterday began to limit customers to half of their capacity and close by 8pm, as a partial lockdown was imposed to contain the highly infectious Delta variant of the coronavirus that has sent infections and deaths to all-time highs.

Public places like shopping malls, parks and places of worship were closed, while eateries could only do takeaways or deliveries.

Road blocks and checkpoints were set up, with around 50,000 military and police officers deployed to enforce movement restrictions until July 20 across the two islands, which account for 70 per cent of Covid-19 cases nationwide.

Java is the most populous Indonesian island with 56.1 per cent or about 151.6 million of the country's 270 million population, while Bali has 4.3 million people.

In Jakarta, a number of road sections were blocked, while more than 20 checkpoints were set up to restrict movement in and out of the city of 11 million dwellers from satellite cities in neighbouring Banten and West Java provinces.

Access to several toll roads was also shut, forcing a number of vehicles to turn back.

Television footage showed Jakarta's main streets were quiet with a smaller number of vehicles compared with regular days. Most blocks at Jakarta's Tanah Abang market, South-east Asia's biggest textile market with around 10,000 tenants, were closed. Only one block selling vegetables and staple food was open, Metro TV reported.

Movements of residents in areas with high and moderate risks of infection were also restricted.

Indonesia expects infections to keep rising for up to two weeks before the partial lockdown begins to reduce cases, Mr Luhut Pandjaitan, a senior minister overseeing the Covid-19 response, said yesterday.

Jakarta registered 9,702 new infections yesterday, more than double the daily record in February during the first wave of the outbreak. Total cases in the city now stand at 570,110.

Indonesia has been grappling with overstretched hospitals, exhausted and burned-out health workers and depleted oxygen reserves. Increased mobility during the Hari Raya Aidilfitri holiday, coupled by the spread of the Delta variant, has accelerated the growth of cases in recent weeks.

The country reported 27,913 new cases yesterday, a daily record high, bringing overall cases to 2.26 million. It registered 493 new deaths, raising the total fatalities to 60,027.

The government hopes to reduce new cases to under 10,000 a day, as hospitals in Jakarta as well as Banten and West Java provinces have reported bed occupancy rates of at least 90 per cent.

But epidemiologists have considered the latest emergency restrictions more lenient than last year's large-scale curbs, which banned all forms of domestic travel to and from selected provinces.

The new restrictions still allow domestic long-distance travel as long as people have had at least one vaccine shot, as well as negative polymerase chain reaction test results for air travel or negative antigen rapid test results for land and sea travel.

Since Indonesia rolled out its mass inoculation programme in January, more than 31 million people or about 11.5 per cent have received at least a dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, falling short of its target to vaccinate 70 per cent of its 270 million population to achieve herd immunity.

The nation is speeding up its vaccination drive nationwide. It aims to inoculate one million people a day this month and two million next month.

Australia, Japan and the United States have offered help to Indonesia, which is largely relying on the Chinese-made Sinovac vaccine and is seeking to diversify its vaccine supply sources.