Indonesia exceeds half a million coronavirus cases

A woman wears a face mask for curbing the spread of coronavirus outbreak at an empty school in Bali, Indonesia (Firdia Lisnawati/AP)

Indonesia’s confirmed Covid-19 cases breached half a million as the government of the world’s fourth most populous nation scrambled to procure vaccines.

Indonesia’s health ministry announced that new daily infections rose by 4,442 to bring the country’s total to 502,110. This is the highest number in Southeast Asia and second on the continent to India’s 9.1 million confirmed cases.