Covid infection rate crosses 13%, one more dies in 24hrs

Bangladesh sees a sharp spike in infection rate as the health authorities recorded 1,135 new cases of coronavirus and one related death in the last 24 hours till Wednesday morning, according to the health department.

This is the third Covid-linked death of the current month.

The daily case positivity rate rose to 13.30 percent during the period up from yesterday’s 11.03 percent, said the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) in a hand out this afternoon.

The death toll of the virus rose to 29, 134 while the caseload to 19, 59, 209 as of Wednesday.

The mortality rate remained unchanged at 1.49 percent while the recovery rate declined to 97.29 which was 97.34 percent a day ago, said the handout.

The new cases were detected after testing 8,536 samples at 880 government authorised laboratories in the country during the period.

Meanwhile, some 122 people recovered from the infection, taking the total number of recovery to 19,06,105.

The lone male victim breathed his last while undergoing treatment at his house in Sylhet during the period.

Of the new cases, 1,080 people found positive of the virus in Dhaka division, 33 in Chattogram, eight in Khulna, six in Barishal, four in Rajshahi, three in Sylhet and one in Mymensingh divisions, said the press release.

In May, the country reported only four Covid-linked deaths and 816 new cases, while 7,356 patients recovered from the disease.

The country reported its first zero Covid-related death in a single day on November 20 last year, along with 178 infections.

On January 28, Bangladesh registered its previous highest daily positivity rate at 33.37 percent reporting 15,440 cases and 20 deaths.

The country registered the highest daily caseload of 16,230 on July 28 last year, while the highest number of daily fatalities was 264 on August 10 last year.

Since the outbreak of the virus at Wuhan province in China in 2019, the health authorities in Bangladesh confirmed the first case on March 8, 2020 and the first death on March 18 in the same year.

Worldometer, a reference website that provides counters and real-time statistics for diverse topics, has so far recorded 63, 43, 924 deaths so far caused by the virus and, 54, 58, 75, 873 cases worldwide.