Covid-19: Spike in death, decline in infection rate

Bangladesh registered the highest number of coronavirus related deaths of 74 people during the last 24 hours till Thursday morning amid the deteriorating coronavirus situation.

With 74, the total death toll of the virus mounted to 9,521 in the country, said Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) in a press release this afternoon.

At the same time, 6,854 new cases of the virus were registered in the country, taking the total number of the caseload to 6, 66,123, the DGHS said in the press release.

Some 33,193 samples were tested at different government authorised laboratories in the country and of them, 6,854 samples were found positive in the same period.

Besides, as many as 3,391 patients were declared free from the infection at the same time, taking the number of total recovery to 5, 65,030 in the country.

According to the updated statistics, the infection rate of the virus came down to 20.65 percent which was 22.02 percent on Wednesday 21.02 percent on Tuesday and 23.40 percent on Monday.

The recovery rate came down to 84.82 percent which was 85.19 percent on Wednesday while the death rate remains static at 1.43 percent in proportion of the infection.

Meanwhile, Worldometer, a reference website that provides counters and real-time statistics for diverse topics, has recorded 29, 04, 016 deaths so far caused by the virus and 13, 38, 23, 764 cases worldwide.

The virus was detected first at Wuhan province of China in December 2019, since then Bangladesh recorded the first case of infection on March 8 last year and confirmed first death 10 days later in the same year.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the pilot Covid-19 vaccination drive formally on January 27.

Later, Health and Family Welfare Minister Zahid Maleque officially inaugurated the mass inoculation campaign across the country on February 7.

Amid the situation, the government went on a seven-day lockdown across the country from Monday to stem the spread of the coronavirus but the death and infection rate is continuously rising as people are reluctant in maintaining the health safety rules.