Covid-19 claims 85 lives, infection rate crosses 20% in 24hrs

The health authority counted 85 more deaths and 5,727 new cases of coronavirus in the last 24 hours until Wednesday morning, according to a handout of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

The daily positivity rate of the virus went up to 20.27 percent from Tuesday’s 19.36 percent and Monday’s 19.27 percent, the DGHS said in the handout this afternoon.

With the new numbers, the death toll in Bangladesh reached 13,787 while the caseload rose to 8, 66,877, the DGHS said.

However, the mortality rate remained static at 1.59 percent, said the DGHS handout.

Some 28,256 samples were tested at 558 government authorised laboratories in the country of which, 5,727 cases were found positive at the same time.

So far, 1,168 patients were declared free from the virus in the same time taking the total number of recovery to 7,91,553 with 91.31 percent recovery rate.

Among the deceased, 55 were male and 30 were female and 65 died at public hospitals, nine at private hospitals, 10 at houses and one brought dead at a hospital.

The highest 36 people died of the virus in Khulna division in the last 24 hours.

Apart from, the deadly virus claimed 19 lives in Dhaka, 18 in Rajshahi, seven in Chattogram, three in Mymensingh and one each in Rangpur and Barishal divisions.

Meanwhile, Worldometer, a reference website that provides counters and real-time statistics for diverse topics, has recorded 38, 99, 731 deaths so far caused by the virus and 17, 99, 97, 274 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 drive

Bangladesh launched its vaccination drive on February 7 with Oxford-AstraZeneca doses purchased from India’s Serum Institute.

The administration of the first dose remained suspended since April 26.

The country, the prime recipient of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines, has also suspended the registration for Covid-19 jabs due to vaccine shortage amid a delay in the arrival of shipments from India.

However, the administering of the 1st dose of Chinese Sinopharm vaccine against Covid-19 began in Bangladesh on May 25.

So far, four vaccines – Oxford-AstraZeneca (Covishield), Sputnik-V, Sinopharm and Pfizer-BioNTech – have got emergency use authorisation in the country.

The government began administration of Sinopharm vaccine by setting up a centre in each district in the country with 11 lakh doses of the vaccine on Saturday morning.

Meanwhile, the government started administering the first doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in capital Dhaka on Monday.

Vaccine procurement update

Bangladesh sought 2 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine doses from the US for addressing Bangladesh’s immediate needs but the US is yet to reply on that particular request.

Meanwhile, seven million doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca Covishield reached Bangladesh and India.

Meanwhile, Health Minister Zahid Maleque has recently said that Bangladesh will get 10 lakh doses of AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine from GAVI under a global arrangement called COVAX facility by August.

Lockdown imposed in 7 districts around Dhaka

The government has decided to put seven districts around Dhaka under a nine-day lockdown, starting from Tuesday 6:00am, to curb the spread of Covid-19.

The districts are — Manikganj, Narayanganj, Munshiganj, Gazipur, Madaripur, Rajbari and Gopalganj.

The Cabinet Division in a circular issued on Monday said the lockdown will remain in force from 6 am on June 22 to June 30 midnight.

However, emergency services like transportation of agricultural equipment and inputs (seeds, fertiliser, insecticides, agri machinery), crops, food items, relief activities, health services, Covid-19 vaccination, water, power, gas, fire service, port activities, telephone, internet services, mass media (electronic and print), private security services, postal services and offices related to emergency services, their employees, vehicles will remain out of the purview of the restrictions, the circular added.