Staff Correspondent: Highest number of deaths – 52 – in a single day since August 26 last year. Bangladesh has recorded the highest number of Covid-19 cases in a day – 5,358 – since the pandemic made landfall in the country in March last year.
Between 8am Tuesday and 8am Wednesday, the health directorate reported the new cases which took the total to 611,295.
At the same time, 52 new deaths from Covid-19 were also recorded across the country – the highest daily figure in seven months.
More 54 Covid fatalities were recorded on August 26, 2020.
With the new deaths, the country`s total toll stood at 9,046 until Wednesday morning, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) said in a press release.
Besides, Wednesday’s test positivity rate – 19.90% – is the highest recorded in the last seven months.
It was August 22 last when the country had recorded a higher infection rate – 19.95%.
The daily infection rate was below 5% for about two months this year but it started to rise from the second week of March.
It saw a rise on Tuesday as it jumped to 18.94% from 18.38 % the previous day and this indicates that the trend of the pandemic is upward.
Wednesday was the third consecutive day that the daily tally of new cases and deaths crossed the 5,000 and 45-mark respectively.
Of the 52 new deceased, 38 were male and 14 female. Total 34 people died in Dhaka division, nine in Chittagong, three each in Rajshahi and Khulna divisions, two in Sylhet, and one in Rangpur division.
So far, 5,152 people died in the Dhaka division, 1,640 in Chittagong, 504 in Rajshahi, 582 in Khulna, 273 in Barisal, 320 in Sylhet, 374 in Rangpur, and 201 in Mymensingh.
The mortality rate against the total number of cases detected so far stands at 1.48%.
Meanwhile, 2,219 people recovered from Covid-19 over the preceding 24 hours.
Up till now, 542,399 patients — 88.73% — have recovered from the disease caused by coronavirus.
The DGHS said 26,671 samples were collected from suspected Covid-19 patients in the last 24 hours while a total of 26,931 samples were tested in government and private testing facilities.
To date, as many as 4,670,576 tests have been conducted in the country. The overall infection rate in the country stands at 13.09%.
On March 18, 202, Bangladesh had reported its first Covid-19 death.
Following a spike in infections, the government took a tougher stance to fight the pandemic.
The Health Ministry also recently sent letters to districts, directing the officials concerned to impose fines on people flouting Covid-19 protocols, after the recent surge in cases.
The country launched a countrywide vaccination drive on February 7. As the daily infection rate keeps rising, the government extended the closure of schools and colleges until May 23.
The Covid-19 first broke out in China`s Wuhan city in late December, 2019, and quickly spread throughout the world, becoming a pandemic in less than three months.
Until Wednesday afternoon, the fast-spreading novel coronavirus claimed over 2,818,000 lives after infecting more than 128,915,000 people across the world while over 104,013,000 people recovered, according to worldometer.
