Regions that share a border with Jakarta are set to follow the capital city in reimposing strict restrictions, locally termed as PSBB, next week to deal with surging coronavirus infections.
In a coordination meeting a day after Jakarta's surprise announcement to "pull an emergency brake", an equivalent to Singapore's circuit breaker measures, Governor Anies Baswedan yesterday received support from Mr Ridwan Kamil, Governor of West Java province, the capital's largest neighbour.
Ministers in the same virtual meeting, however, criticised Mr Anies for not giving the national government a heads-up on this move.
"We will follow the Jakarta government's lead. If Jakarta reimposes PSBB, we should do the same," said a senior official who was at the coordination meeting, echoing Mr Ridwan's stand.
On Wednesday, Mr Anies said hospitals would reach full capacity by the second week of next month if large-scale social restrictions, which had been gradually eased since June, were not reinstated.
The Jakarta government has been under fire for a lack of enforcement against restaurants and businesses that breach health protocols.
Many restaurants did not comply with a rule to cap guests at 50 per cent seat capacity, but were not penalised for this.
Java - Indonesia's most populous island, where Jakarta is located - accounts for 57 per cent of all infections in the country.
Other provinces with the most Covid-19 cases are South Sulawesi and South Kalimantan.
Health and transportation experts have said that reimposing PSBB in Jakarta would be pointless if surrounding regions do not do the same, as human traffic in and out of Greater Jakarta remains high.
The Straits Times understands that hospitals have been receiving a noticeably higher number of coronavirus patients who are teenagers or above 60 in the past week.
Some observers attributed this to family clusters triggered by a long weekend holiday for Indonesia's Independence Day in mid-August that saw many Jakartans leave the city for a few days' break and return infected with Covid-19.
Dr Firman Noor, head of Indonesian Institute of Sciences' political research centre, said that areas with high cases, such as Surabaya in East Java, should reimpose curbs.
"It's pointless to believe things would get better. The economy is not improving, and more people are getting sick and dying," he told The Straits Times.
The Jakarta administration said earlier this week that the occupancy rate of isolation rooms in the city's 67 Covid-19 referral hospitals has hit 77 per cent, and the rate for intensive care units has hit 83 per cent.
Indonesia first announced its first coronavirus infections in early March and the earliest cases were all in Jakarta.
The hospitals will reach full capacity by next Thursday, but the authorities are planning to increase capacity by about 20 per cent as they engage more private hospitals to treat Covid-19 patients.
This will increase isolation beds from 4,053 to 4,807.
But without strict efforts to curb the spread of the virus, Jakarta will exhaust this new capacity by the second week of next month.
"It is like we have been running a marathon since March - we are exhausted. This is not to be underestimated. The situation is not under control," Dr Erlina Burhan, a pulmonologist from Persahabatan Hospital, was reported by Reuters as saying.
Coordinating Economic Minister Airlangga Hartarto said yesterday that a balance must be struck between pressing the gas pedal and the brake in deciding policies to fight Covid-19.
He stressed that hitting the brakes has taken a toll on economic sentiment, as reflected by the plunge in the country's stock market.
The Jakarta Composite Index fell 5 per cent yesterday.
