Indonesia Posted More than 54,000 New COVID Infections on Wednesday 

Indonesia, the world’s fourth-largest nation, is the latest hotspot for the fast-moving, highly contagious delta variant of COVID-19.  

The nation reported more than 54,517 new coronavirus infections Wednesday, a new single-day record, along with 991 deaths. Hospitals on Java island are overflowing with infected patients and residents scrambling to find oxygen tanks to treat family members isolating at home.  Indonesia’s rising daily COVID-19 rates have begun to outstrip that of India, where the variant was first detected.  India endured a disastrous outbreak earlier this year, with a peak of more than 400,000 daily cases in early May, now down to about 40,000.   The Associated Press says about 1.5 million doses of the two-dose Moderna vaccine are set to arrive in Indonesia from the United States Thursday, coming on the heels of three million doses that arrived Sunday.  Only 15 million of the country’s 270 million people have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.