Covid claims one life, infection rate crosses 15% in 24hrs

Bangladesh has been witnessing a fresh surge in the infection rate of coronavirus for the last few weeks as the health authorities recorded 620 cases of the virus with 15.38 percent positivity rate in the last 24 hours till Friday morning.

One more death caused by the virus was recorded during the 24 hours period, taking the death toll to 29,347, said a handout of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

The daily case positivity rate was 14.13 percent on Thursday and 14.73 percent on Wednesday.

The new cases were detected after testing 4,031 samples at 881 government authorised laboratories in the country at the same time, mounting the caseload to 20,20,768.

Meanwhile, some 345 patients recovered from the virus, taking the total number of recovery to 19,62,164 as of Friday.

The Covid-19 dashboard shows that the mortality rate of the virus remained static at 1.45 percent while the recovery rate declined to 97.10 percent which was 97.11 percent on Thursday.

The lone victim was male and he was aged between 51 and 60 years. He breathed his last while undergoing treatment at a government hospital in Sylhet.

The health authorities also detected 505 cases in Dhaka, 15 in Mymensingh, 28 in Chattogram, 30 in Rajshahi, three in Rangpur, 21 in Khulna, 13 in Barishal and five in Sylhet divisions during the period.

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 in 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 of the same year.

Worldometer, a reference website that provides counters and real-time statistics for diverse topics, has recorded 65, 37, 074 deaths so far caused by the virus and 61, 93, 48, 849 cases worldwide.