Bangladesh reports highest Covid-19 daily death toll

As delta variant is spreading fast in Bangladesh, the health authorities recorded 231 fresh deaths from coronavirus in the last 24 hours until Monday morning, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

The deadly virus also infected 13,321 persons in the same period, the DGHS came up with the disclosure in a press statement on Monday afternoon.

According to the updated official figures, the death toll of the virus mounted to 18,125 while the caseload stood at 11,17,312 in the country, the DGHS said.

The country saw 230 deaths and 11,874 cases of coronavirus with 29.67 percent infection rate on July 11.

The fresh cases were detected after testing 45,012 samples during the period, which pushed up the positivity rate to 29.59 percent from Sunday 29.09 percent and Saturday’s 29.06 percent.

However, the fatality rate remained static at 1.62 percent for at least two days.

According to the updated data, both the death and infection rates of the virus increased in the last 24 hours in Bangladesh.

A total of 9,335 patients were declared free from the infection, taking the total number of recovery to 9, 41,343 with 84.25 percent recovery rate.

Just like the last few days, Dhaka reported the highest deaths as 73 more people died with the fatal disease during this time, followed by 57 deaths in Khulna, 43 in Chattogram, 17 in Rangpur, 16 in Rangpur, 11 in Mymensingh, eight in Sylhet and six in Barishal divisions.

Of the deceased, 136 were male while 95 were female and the victims were aged between 11 and 100 years.

Of them, 167 died at public hospitals, 46 at private hospitals and 18 at houses in the same period.

Meanwhile, Worldometer, a reference website that provides counters and real-time statistics for diverse topics, has recorded 41, 08, 240 deaths so far caused by the virus and 19, 13, 22, 425 cases worldwide.

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

Vaccination update

The government has so far approved the emergency use of Oxford-AstraZeneca, Sinopharm (China), Sputnik-V (Russia), Pfizer-BioNTech (USA/Germany), Crona Vac (China) and Janssen single-dose vaccines.

Amid the deteriorating coronavirus situation, the government resumed the countrywide mass registration on July 8 for receiving Covid-19 jabs, which remained suspended for around three months as vaccine procurement became unsure.

Bangladesh is currently administering the doses of Sinopharm vaccine and Pfizer BioNTech vaccine and also the second dose of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.

Earlier in the day, health and family welfare ministry said that Bangladesh will receive 20 lakh more doses of Sinopharm vaccine from China by Saturday night as part of the commercial agreement as the country has accelerated its vaccination drive.

Besides, US Ambassador Earl R Miller has announced another consignment of three million doses of Moderna's Covid-19 vaccine for Bangladesh.

These vaccine doses are coming to Bangladesh from the American people via the COVAX facility, he said.

Govt relaxes lockdown ahead of Eid

The government has relaxed the lockdown restrictions for eight days from July 15 on the occasion of the Eid-ul-Azha, the second largest religious festival of Muslims, to be celebrated on July 21.

The strict lockdown will again be imposed across the country from July 23 to contain the transmission of the deadly coronavirus, according to a government notification signed by Principal Information Officer Surath Kumar Sarker.

During the period, all will have to wear mask and maintain health guidelines, read the notification.

The Cabinet Division will issue a gazette notification in this regard on Wednesday, Surath Kumar Sarker said.

In the notification, the cabinet division said that the lockdown restrictions will be lifted from July 14 midnight to the morning of July 23.

However, strict restrictions will resume from July 23 and will continue till August 5, as per the order.