Global Covid-19 cases top 151m with India as epicentre

With new variants of Covid-19 spreading rapidly, the global Covid-19 caseload on Saturday touched the grim milestone of 151 million.

The total Covid-19 fatalities also mounted to 3,176,404, according to the latest figures released by Johns Hopkins University.

Neighbouring India’s total Covid cases have now crossed the 19-million mark. India's Covid-19 tally reached 19,164,969 on Saturday, with a single day spike of 401,993 cases, the country's health ministry said.

India’s Covid tension eased a bit as cases dropped in September. But infections began increasing in February.

India’s daily deaths have nearly tripled in the past three weeks, reflecting the intensity of the latest surge. And the country’s already teetering health system is under immense strain, prompting multiple global allies to send help.

The US, the world's worst-hit country in terms of cases and deaths, have recorded 32,345,062 cases with 575,921 fatalities to date, as per the university data.

Brazil on Friday registered 2,870 more deaths from Covid-19 in 24 hours, raising the national count to 404,287, the world's second-highest corona death toll after the US, the Ministry of Health said.

The ministry said that tests detected 73,076 new Covid-19 cases, taking its nationwide tally to 14,665,962.

April has been the month with the most deaths since the outbreak of the pandemic in the Latin American nation, with about 75,944 fatalities having been reported to date, compared with 66,000 deaths for March.

Situation in Bangladesh

Bangladesh on Saturday recorded its lowest single-day more coronavirus-related death of 57 and 2,177 new cases amid a rising tide of virus.

The daily infection rate rose to 10.34 percent from Friday’s 9.39 percent but the mortality rate was at 1.51 percent. However, the infection rate in the country came down to 10 percent after over a month.

As of Saturday, 7,59,132 cases and 11,450 deaths have been recorded, the Directorate General of Health Services said in a handout.

The number of recoveries now stands at 681,426, (89.76 %), according to the directorate.

Bangladesh reported its first coronavirus cases on March 8 last year and the first death on the 18th of that month.

Lockdown extended

The disturbing surge in Covid cases prompted the government to go for a lockdown from early April. Having failed to achieve the intended result, it imposed a complete lockdown from April 11 and extended it to April 28. 

On Wednesday, the government issued a circular extending the lockdown till May 5, as there is no improvement in the Covid-19 situation.

However, shops and shopping malls will remain open from 10am to 8pm during the extended period, the government has said.

Vaccination

Bangladesh launched a vaccination drive on February 7 with Oxford-AstraZeneca doses it acquired from the Serum Institute of India.

Bangladesh signed an agreement with Serum for 30 million doses. But a record number of cases in India has made the delivery of the doses uncertain.

However, BDGHS chief Prof ABM Khurshid Alam has assured citizens that Bangladesh will get 2.1 million doses of the vaccine by the first week of May.

Moreover, the government on Thursday approved the emergency use of Sinopharm, a Chinese Covid-19 vaccine. It approved the emergency use of Sputnik V vaccine of Russia a day before.