Indonesia may emerge as new epicenter of coronavirus in Asia

New Delhi : Indonesia has surpassed India's daily coronavirus case numbers, making it a new Asian epicenter of highly contagious Delta variant.

The country has seen its daily case count cross 40,000 for two straight days - including a record high of 47,899 on Tuesday - up from less than 10,000 a month ago.

Officials are concerned as more transmissible variant of coronavirus, Java, has been found outside of the country's main island and it could soon exhaust hospital workers and oxygen supplies.

Indonesia's current numbers are still far from India's peak of 400,000 daily cases in May. India, with a population roughly five times the size of Indonesia's 270 million people, saw daily infections drop below 33,000 on Tuesday as its devastating outbreak wanes.

Indonesia reported 907 deaths daily on average in the past seven days -- compared to just 181 a month ago -- while India reported an average of 1,072 daily fatalities.

Developing nations are still struggling to contain the virus despite continuous efforts of vaccinating people. Meanwhile, developed nations like UK and US are returning to normalcy after vaccination.

Indonesia has administered vaccines to cover just 10% of its population and India 14%, compared to 46% of the European Union's population and 52% in the U.S., according to Bloomberg's Vaccine Tracker.