Covid-19: Dhaka breaks records with 7,213 cases, 66 deaths

Bangladesh witnessed record-breaking daily Covid-19 fatalities and infections with 66 deaths and 7,213 cases during the last 24 hours till Tuesday morning amid the worsening coronavirus situation. More than 7,000 new Coronavirus cases were recorded for the third consecutive day on Tuesday, according to a handout issued by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

With the new 66 deaths, the coronavirus fatalities rose to 9,384 while the mortality rate dropped slightly to 1.44 percent as it was 1.45 percent on Monday.

During the 24-hour period, 2,969 patients recovered, taking the number of recoveries to 558,383, the DGHS handout said.

Although the government enforced a 7-day lockdown from Monday restricting people’s movement, shutting shops, markets and suspending operations of public transport (bus, train and domestic flights), people took it lightly and moving around feely defying the restriction, posing risks of more transmission.

Coronavirus claimed 568 lives in Bangladesh in January this year, while 281 in February and 638 in March.

Earlier, the country’s health authorities recorded over 5,000 Covid cases on March 29, 30 and 31 and April 3 while over 6,000 cases on April 1 and 2.

The infection rate came down to 21.02 percent from 23.40 percent on Monday.

Bangladesh has so far recorded 651,652 coronavirus cases, the DGHS handout added.

The number of daily cases and infection rate had dropped below 5 percent earlier this year but then the infection rate continued to rise amid people’s reluctance about maintaining health safety rules.

Hospitals are struggling to provide treatment to the increasing number of coronavirus patients with their limited resources. The government is increasing the number of beds and Covid-designated hospitals to deal with the situation.

Bangladesh reported its first cases on March 8 last year and confirmed the first death from the virus 10 days later.

The country has so far tested 4,847,935 samples, including 34,311 in the last 24 hours, the DGHS said.

Among the latest victims, 54 died in Dhaka division, 4 in Chattogram, 3 in Rajshahi, two in each Khulna, Barishal and one in Sylhet divisions.

So far, 5,398 coronavirus patients died in Dhaka division, 1,684 in Chattogram, 513 in Rajshahi, 595 in Khulna, 279 in Barishal, 329 in Sylhet, 381 in Rangpur and 205 in Mymensingh divisions.

So far, 7043 men (75.05) and 2,341 women (24.95) died of Covid-19.