Deaths from Covid continue to hit record as 258 more lose lives

Bangladesh is going through the most frightening stage of coronavirus as the health authorities registered another highest single-day death toll of 258 in the last 24 hours until Tuesday morning.

Besides, 14,925 cases were reported during the period after testing 52,478 samples at 639 government authorised laboratories in the country, according to a government data.

With the Delta variant induced virus spreading fast, the country’s fatalities has been hovering at nearly 200 for the last two weeks.

The new numbers took the country’s death tally to 19,779 while the caseload to 11,94,752, Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) said in a press release this afternoon.

Meanwhile, the daily positivity rate of the virus decreased to 28.44 percent from Monday’s 29. 82 percent and Sunday’s 30.04 percent.

However, the fatality rate increased 1.66 percent from Monday’s 1.65 percent during the period, said the DGHS.

A total of 12.439 patients were declared free from the infection, taking the total number of recovery to 10, 22,414 with 85.58 percent recovery rate.

Just like the previous days, Dhaka reported the highest deaths as 84 more people died with the fatal disease during this time, followed by 61 deaths in Chattogram, 50 in Khulna, 21in Rajshahi, 13 in Barishal, 11 each in Rangpur and Mumensingh and seven in Sylhet divisions.

Of the deceased, 138 were male while 120 were female and all the victims were aged between 11 and 100 years.

Of them, 202 died at public hospitals, 39 at private hospitals and 15 at houses besides two were brought dead to hospitals in the same period.

Meanwhile, Worldometer, a reference website that provides counters and real-time statistics for diverse topics, has recorded 41, 87, 077 deaths so far caused by the virus and 19, 55,48, 821 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 on Monday, Health and Family Welfare Minister Zahid Maleque claimed that Bangladesh will get 21 crore doses of Covid-19 vaccine by early 2022 and these vaccines will meet the needs of 14 crore people that means 80 percent of total population in the country.

Nationwide strict lockdown enters fifth day

The 14-day of nationwide lockdown entered the fourth day on Monday which was reimposed on July 23 to contain the spread of the coronavirus in the country.

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, celebrated on July 21.

During the period, all people have been asked to wear mask and maintain health guidelines.

The lockdown restrictions will be lifted on August 5 as per the order.