Indonesia, the 4th largest country on Earth (278 million people), has recorded essentially zero cases & deaths for three straight months:
Cases in Indonesia disappeared at the end of September, despite continued high testing rates.
The share of tests returning positive fell to below 0.4% and has remained there for months.
Obviously, the disappearance of covid in Indonesia can no be credited to vaccination, since less than 6% of the population was vaccinated when cases peaked in mid-July (and we have numerous examples of high vax countries with skyrocketing cases).
A seroprevelance study from Jakarta indicates that ~30% of Indonesia had recovered from covid by the end of February and that only 1:12 cases were being detected. If that same ratio held through this Summer, >90% of Indonesians have been infected.
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34941968/
It appears that, like India, covid has already infected the vast majority of the population of Indonesia and that infection acquired immunity eliminated transmission in that nation.
Cumulative deaths in Indonesia have topped out at 500 per million (1/4 to 1/6 the rate in Europe the Americas).
Why have so few died when everyone has been infected (and this was all pre-Omicron)?
The NIH published study estimates an IFR of 0.08% in Indonesia.
1. Indonesia has a healthy population pyramid with just 10% older than 60 years, compared to 26% older than 60 in Europe:
2. Indonesia has very little obesity, at just 7%, versus 20% to 40% in Europe & Americas.
3. Indonesia is a tropical nation with relatively low levels of vitamin D deficiency. Multiple studies from Indonesia have shown that essentially all recorded covid deaths occurred in those with insufficient vitamin D:
emerginnova.com/patterns-of-co…
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33342439/
So, it appears that covid has infected everyone in Indonesia while causing relatively little morbidity and that the pandemic (if it ever existed) ended in Indonesia during the Summer of 2021.
Unfortunately, this hopeful message has not seemed to reach the government:
From this video, it does appear that the people of Jakarta have returned to something close to normalcy - unfortunately with far too many people still wearing utterly useless masks while outdoors.
By the way, Omicron now accounts for 1/3 of all cases in Indonesia...
Thus far, however, natural immunity still seems to be holding up against Omicron in Indonesia.
However, based upon S. Africa, even if Omicron does reinfect some %, I wouldn't expect significant deaths.
All three of these countries have the same reported Omicron mix.
Two of these countries have vaccinated nearly all adults; one of these countries has had nearly everyone recover from infection.
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