Covid-19 : Bangladesh sees 37 more deaths, 2,695 new cases in a day

Bangladesh recorded another spike in coronavirus cases on Wednesday when the health authorities announced detection of 2,695 new patients in the last 24 hours. “During this period, 37 patients died, raising the death toll to 746,” Prof Dr Nasima Sultana, Additional Director General of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), told a regular online briefing, reports UNB.

“The mortality rate is 1.35 percent in country,” she said. Bangladesh’s confirmed cases now stand at 55,140.

Fifty labs tested 12,510 samples in the last 24 hours and the infection rate is 21.54 percent, she added, adding that so far, 345,589 tests have been carried out.

Bangladesh announced its first cases on March 8 and the first death on March 18 but it has been seeing a sharp rise in both new cases and deaths in recent weeks.

In May, 452 deaths and 39,386 cases were recorded. In March, the number of confirmed cases was 51 and six people were killed. In April, 160 people were killed while 7,616 confirmed cases were reported.

In the last 24 hours, 470 more patients recovered, Prof Nasima said, noting that so far 11,590 people have made recovery. The recovery rate is 21.02 percent.

Among the deceased, 28 were male and nine were female.

One was aged between 21 and 30 years, three between 31 and 40 years, five between 41 and 50, 12 between 51 and 60, 12 between 61 and 70 and four between 71 and 80 years,” Dr Nasima said.

Nineteen of them died in Dhaka division, 13 in Chattogram division, one in Sylhet division, two in Rangpur division and another in Khulna division.

“Thirty one patients died at hospitals, five at home while another was pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital,” she added.

Meanwhile, 395 more people were taken into isolation while 137 were released. Currently 6,498 people are in isolation.

During the same period, another 2,428 people were home and institutionally quarantined and 3,145 were released. At present 57,828 people are quarantined across the country.

Dr Nasima urged the media to promote the use of masks.

She said many people are still seen going out in public without wearing face masks.

“Your safety lies with you,” she told the people. “We must use masks.”

She said three-layer masks made at home with old clothes can help protect people from coronavirus. “It’s a key took in fight against coronavirus,” she said.

“If we spend Tk 1 for a mask, we’ll get benefits worth Tk 1,000 by keeping ourselves safe. But we must also maintain social distancing and hygiene,” the DGHS additional director said.

“Please wear masks properly. Keep yourself and everyone safe.”

Meanwhile, the number of globally confirmed cases went up to 6,377,596 while the death toll reached 380,205 in the morning, according to the Centre for System Science and Engineering of the Johns Hopkins University.

JHU data show that Brazil has 555,383 confirmed coronavirus cases, the second highest in the world after the USA. The South American country lost 31,199 lives to Covid-19 till date.

The US has the highest number of confirmed cases and deaths. It recorded 106,180 deaths and 1,831,806 cases so far.

The UK has the second-highest death toll at 39,452, followed by Italy with 33,530, France 28,943 and Spain 27,127, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Coronavirus cases were first reported in China in December last year.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the coronavirus crisis a pandemic on March 11.