Global Covid-19 deaths cross 4 million

The second wave of the pandemic continues to take a heavy toll on human lives around the world. In fact, the global fatality figure has now topped four million.

The total caseload and fatalities from the virus stand at 185,018,936 and 4,000,641, respectively, as of Thursday morning, according to Johns Hopkins University.

So far, 3,322,028,826 Covid vaccine doses have been administered across the globe, as per the university data.

The US has logged 33,769,829 cases and 606,215 deaths to date, according to the university data. The death toll in the United States is the highest in the world.

Brazil registered 1,648 more deaths from Covid-19 in the past 24 hours, bringing the national death toll to 528,540, the health ministry said Wednesday.

A total of 54,022 new infections were detected during the period, raising the total caseload to 18,909,037, the ministry said.

India's Covid-19 tally rose to 30,663,665 on Wednesday as 43,733 new cases were registered in 24 hours across the country, according to the federal health ministry.

Besides, 930 deaths due to the pandemic since Tuesday morning pushed up the total death toll to 404,211.

Covid-19 was first detected in the city of Wuhan, China, in late 2019, but the outbreak spread quickly across the globe in the first two-three months of 2020.

It was declared a global pandemic by the WHO on March 11, 2020.

Situation in Bangladesh

In a disastrous turn, Bangladesh on Wednesday recorded 201 deaths, its highest-ever single-day fatalities, in the last 24 hours.

Besides, the country logged 11,162 new cases, though the positivity rate declined slightly to 31.32 % from Tuesday’s 31.46%.

The new numbers took Bangladesh’s death toll to 15,593 and the caseload to 977,568.

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen on Wednesday said Bangladesh is hopeful of receiving more vaccine doses this month from Japan, the European Union, and the US under the COVAX facility apart from a steady flow of jabs from China.

“We’re in a good position now. I should say we’ve made a line up. I think there’ll be no vaccine crisis, and the vaccination programme will continue uninterruptedly,” he told reporters at his residence in Dhaka.

Momen said that Bangladesh is expected to get around 2.5 million doses of vaccine from Japan and one million from the EU under the COVAX facility. “These’re likely to be AstraZeneca vaccine doses.”

In another positive turn of events, people will now be able to register for Covid-19 jabs through imo, the popular messaging app said in a release.

The move aims to amplify the mass vaccination efforts of the Bangladesh government, said the release.