Covid makes July cruellest month

Bangladesh suffered its highest casualties and infections from the Delta variant of Covid-19 in the month of July as the coronavirus pandemic continues hold the world hostage.

The month of July alone covered 29.19 per cent of Covid deaths and 26.24 per cent of total infections since the first Covid case was detected in the country on March 8, 2020 and first death from the virus 10 days later.

The Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) in its daily brief disclosed that the country recorded 218 new deaths and 9,369 new positive cases in a span of 24 hours till Saturday 8:00am.

Including the latest, Bangladesh’s death toll from the pandemic now stands at 20,685 while the total number of active case reached 1,249,484.

Of the total casualties and cases in the last 17 months, July alone posted 6,039 deaths and infection 327,925, making it the cruellest month of the pandemic till now.

DGHS statistics showed that in last seven months, 12,983 people died from Covid infection, where 6,039 of them died in July.

On Saturday, the positivity percentage was found to be 30.24 per cent after testing 30,980 samples in 649 laboratories across the country.

Meanwhile, 14,017 people also recovered over the same period taking the total number of recoveries to 10,78,212.

Bangladesh witnessed a new wave of Covid cases and deaths after the Delta variant of the virus spread across the country from India in May this year.

This year, 568 died in January, 281 in February, 638 in March, 2,404 in April, 1,169 in May and 1,884 in June.

Meanwhile, 21,629 cases were detected in January, 11,077 in February, 65,079 in March, 147,837 in April, 41,408 in May, and 112,718 in June.

In July last year, the country recorded 1,264 deaths and 92,178 positive cases.

Mohammad Mushtuq Husain, a public health expert and an adviser to the Institute of Epidemiology Disease Control and Research (IEDCR), told The Business Post that so far July proved to be the cruellest months as Covid situation started deteriorating from May and continue to worsen further.

He said although the government declared a strict lockdown since the beginning of the month, the move seems to have failed to control transmission leading to the spike.

Mentioning that the Delta variant was 90 per cent more infectious than the novel coronavirus detected first in China, the health expert also said the variant has already spread across 130 countries so far, but all these countries were not affected equally.

“The only way out of this is to control transmission strictly and ensure treatment for infected people pragmatically,” he added.

Asked whether the strict lockdown enforced by the government was effective, he said that the present situation could have been more severe if the lockdown had not been imposed.

He suspected that Delta variant might have mutated further over the last month in the country.

Amid the spike of virus and ongoing 14-day country-wide strict lockdown, thousands of garment workers have started returning to the capital and other industrial areas to join their workplaces as the government announced all export-oriented factories open by Sunday.

The workers, mostly not vaccinated, from various districts started moving into industrial belts in Dhaka, Gazipur, Narayanganj and Chattogram.

Trade Union leaders, however, protested the decision of factory reopening when public transport, markets and other trade remained closed under lockdown.

Public health experts fear that without being vaccinated, any large gathering of people might increase Covid’s cruelty.

Gonoshasthaya Kendra Founder Zafrullah Chowdhury said that the government continues to take suicidal decisions over and over again regarding Covid issue.

He also asked the government to ensure vaccines for all as soon as possible.

Until that, he suggested the government to take pragmatic steps to control transmission of the virus.