Daily Covid deaths fall below 200

After days of surge, coronavirus-related deaths and new cases fell on Friday when Bangladesh recorded less than 10,000 positive cases after 20 days.

According to a regular press release of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), the country logged 8,465 Covid positive cases and 197 deaths in 24 hours till 8am on Friday.

Among the latest victims, 108 are male and the rest are women. Of them, 188 died in various hospitals.

DGHS said that after testing 40,641 samples in 708 laboratories across the country, they found a 20.83 per cent positivity rate, which is the lowest in over a month. Dhaka recorded 78 of the deaths, Chattogram 53, Rajshahi and Sylhet 8 each, Khulna 18, Barishal 11, Rangpur 9 and Mymensingh 12.

With the latest figures, the number of confirmed cases soared to 14,05,333. The local death tally, on the other hand, rose to 23,810. Bangladesh confirmed its first coronavirus cases on March 8 last year and the first death on March 18 that year.

The country saw a surge in cases at the beginning of July when the Delta variant of the virus spread in the country.

Health Minister Zahid Maleque repeatedly said that the hospitals were filled with patients and could not accommodate any more patients.

Amid the reality, the government from Wednesday withdrew its 19-day lockdown enforced to tackle coronavirus transmission. At the same time, the government conducted a special week-long vaccination campaign to inoculate 35 lakh people in six days.

So far, the government has administered the 1st dose to 15.3 million people and 5.2 million have received 2nd doses since the country started mass vaccination on February 7.

In April, the government was forced to suspend the administration of the first dose of the Covid vaccine after the Serum Institute of India deferred the shipment of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine to Bangladesh.

On December 13, 2020, Bangladesh signed a deal with the SII to purchase three crore doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine and the country was supposed to receive 50 lakh doses a month as per the deal.

Referring to the health ministry, Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen said that Bangladesh has a stock of 1.23 crore vaccine doses and some of them (AstraZeneca) will be kept for the second dose. He said that Bangladesh would receive another consignment of 34 lakh doses of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine soon and another 60 lakh doses of the Pfizer vaccine in the first week of September.