Bangladesh records 187 Covid deaths, 3,697 new cases

Marking another grim Eid under the shadow of a pandemic and amid growing concerns about the highly infectious delta variant, Bangladesh recorded 187 more Covid-19 deaths and 3,697 new cases in the last 24 hours until Thursday morning.

According to the updated official figures, the death toll of the virus mounted to 18,685 while the caseload stood at 11,40,200 in the country, Directorate General of Health Service (DGHS) disclosed it in a press release this afternoon.

The daily positivity rate of the virus increased 1.71 percentage point from Wednesday’s 30.48 percent which was 29.31 percent on Tuesday and 29.59 percent on Monday.

Besides, the fatality rate also increased 1.64 percent from Wednesday’s 1.63 percent which was remain static at 1.61 percent for many days.

The fresh cases were detected after testing 11,486 samples at 639 government authorised laboratories in the country during same the period.

A total of 8,566 patients were declared free from the infection, taking the total number of recovery to 9, 69,610 with 85.04 percent recovery rate.

Just like the last few days, Dhaka reported the highest deaths as 75 more people died with the fatal disease during this time, followed by 44 deaths in Khulna, 23 in Chattogram, 15 in Rangpur, 11 in Barishal, 10 in Rajshahi, five in Mymensingh and four in Sylhet divisions.

Of the deceased, 117 were male while 70 were female and the victims were aged between 11 and 100 years.

Of them, 157 died at public hospitals, 28 at private hospitals and two at houses in the same period.

Meanwhile, Worldometer, a reference website that provides counters and real-time statistics for diverse topics, has recorded 41, 45, 502 deaths so far caused by the virus and 19, 29, 73, 277 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, Dr ABM Khurshid Alam, director general of the DGHS, told the Business Insider Bangladesh that the vaccination centres will remain closed for four days because of Eid holiday to begin from July 20 to 22 in Bangladesh.

Apart from, July 23 is Friday and the day is considered as weekly holiday and thus the vaccine centre will also remain stopped on that day, he added.

The vaccination activities will again be resumed on Saturday though the next course of strict lockdown to begin from the same day across the country simultaneously.

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.

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

Meanwhile, State Minister for Public Administration Farhad Hossain said that the lockdown will be stricter than the past ones. There is no alternative but to go for such a decision, he added.

The lockdown will be enforced as previously declared and there will be no change to its enforcement process, the junior minister said.