Open Access Maced J Med Sci. 2020 May 15; 8(T1):45-50. 45 Scientifc Foundation SPIROSKI, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia Open Access Macedonian Journal of Medical Sciences. 2020 May 15; 8(T1):45-50. https://doi.org/10.3889/oamjms.2020.4816 eISSN: 1857-9655 Category: T1 - Thematic Issue “Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19)” Section: Microbiology One-month Progress of COVID-19 Cases in East Kalimantan, Indonesia Swandari Paramita, Anton Rahmadi*, Ronny Isnuwardana, Rudy Agung Nugroho Center of Excellence for Tropical Studies, Mulawarman University, Samarinda, East Kalimantan, Indonesia Abstract BACKGROUND: East Kalimantan, Indonesia, will play a signifcant geopolitical role as the province has been selected as the location of the future capital city of Indonesia. As a buffer zone to the capital city, there is urgent attention on the preparedness of the cities and regencies in East Kalimantan to respond to emergent infectious disease events such as coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19). AIM: The aim of the present study was to descriptively convey information about COVID-19 cases in East Kalimantan during the period of March 18, 2020–April 18, 2020, in terms of the isolation, testing, and tracing mechanisms used. METHODS: The initial distribution of COVID-19 was identifed in 5 of 10 districts and is now present in almost all districts except for one very remote regency. RESULTS: The tracing performance of the fast response teams in East Kalimantan during this period was considered satisfactory with a mean of 0.7% of people under observation testing positive for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, and a mean of 14.4% patients under investigations testing positive. The use of rapid tests since March 30, 2020 has improved the detection ability, with confrmed positive cases as a percentage of confrmed negatives increasing from 20.2% to 31.8%. The use of the COVID-19 rapid test was cross-checked with a dengue rapid test to prevent false- positive identifcation. Confrmed clusters were announced to the public, urging people to respond and report. CONCLUSION: The 1-month progress of COVID-19 cases in East Kalimantan showed a total case fatality rate (CFR) of 1.85%, a closed CFR of 8.3% and a closed case recovery rate of 91.7%. Edited by: Mirko Spiroski Citation: Paramita S, Rahmadi A, Isnuwardana R, Nugroho RA. One-month Progress of COVID-19 Cases in East Kalimantan, Indonesia. Open Access Maced J Med Sci. 2020 May 15; 8(T1):45-50. https://doi.org/10.3889/oamjms.2020.4816 Keywords: East Kalimantan; Coronavirus disease-19; Tracing; Cluster identifcation; Case fatality rate *Correspondence: Anton Rahmadi, Center of Excellence for Tropical Studies, Mulawarman University, Samarinda, East Kalimantan, Indonesia. E-mail: arahmadi@unmul.ac.id Received: 21-Apr-2020 Revised: 14-May-2020 Accepted: 21-May-2020 Copyright: © 2020 Swandari Paramita, Anton Rahmadi, Ronny Isnuwardana, Rudy Agung Nugroho Funding: Publication of this article was fnancially supported by the Scientifc Foundation SPIROSKI, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist Open Access: This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0) Introduction Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a disease which causes by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) started as reported cases of respiratory illnesses from Wuhan, China by the end of 2019 and eventually spread all over the world in the following months, which forced World Health Organization (WHO) to declare it as pandemic by March 11, 2020 [1], [2]. To curb the spread of SARS- CoV-2, many countries implemented several measures such as limiting to closing border movements, community-wide isolation, and preventing the gathering of people [3], [4], [5]. Indonesia offcially confrmed its frst COVID-19 case on March 02, 2020. In the announcement by the President of the Republic of Indonesia, the frst cluster was identifed as a dance class [6]. In this cluster, 13 people were later positively identifed as COVID- 19 cases [7]. Three major activities which occurred between February 26, 2020 and February 28, 2020 were identifed as clusters of COVID-19 transmission: The Seminar Sinode Bogor, Seminar Anti Riba Bogor, and Seminar Kerohanian Lembang [8]. Participants in these events came from all regions of Indonesia, including East Kalimantan. On March 18–20, 2020, East Kalimantan confrmed nine COVID-19 patients, the majority of them coming from the two main clusters: The Seminar Sinode Bogor, Indonesia and Seminar Anti Riba Bogor, Indonesia. There was a confrmed positive patient from another cluster, the General Election Commission meeting in Jakarta [9]. East Kalimantan has been selected as the location for the new capital of the Republic of Indonesia [10]. Consequently, the fow of people in and out of East Kalimantan has increased rapidly. Despite this, health-care facilities in East Kalimantan are still limited compared to similar facilities on the island of Java. For this reason, the spread of COVID-19 needs special attention, given the nature of rapid transmission and the need for signifcant intensive care unit facilities [11]. Management of infectious diseases such as COVID-19 requires special arrangements such as negative pressure isolation rooms, personal protective equipment with a level three biosafety standard, and ventilators to help critical patients [12]. Therefore, the provincial government set several measures in place to fatten the curve of the COVID-19 infection rate and to prevent health services from being overloaded. Recording the events surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic is needed as a future learning