President Joko Widodo pointed out that daily infection rates and hospital occupancy rates have fallen, including in the hard-hit capital Jakarta, as reasons for easing policies.
But in a dozen areas outside Jakarta, in densely populated Java and Bali, infection rates have also soared in recent weeks.
The Immigration Bureau said on Tuesday that since the beginning of July, nearly 19,000 foreigners have left Indonesia through Jakarta’s main international airport, with 2,962 and 2,219 expatriates from Japan and China, respectively.
Indonesia is the main market for Japanese companies and has many commercial projects supported by Chinese companies, its largest trading partner.
The level of vaccination in Indonesia is still well below the government’s goal of 1 million per day in July. Of its 270 million people, less than 7% received two injections.
A total of more than 3.2 million cases and 86,835 deaths from the virus have been reported in the country, but due to low testing and tracking rates, it is widely believed that these official numbers are severely underestimated.
