Bangladesh registered the highest number of daily infections with 7,626 new cases and 63 more deaths during the last 24 hours till Wednesday morning amid the deteriorating coronavirus situation.

With today’s figure, over 7,000 new Coronavirus cases were recorded for the fourth consecutive day, according to a handout issued by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

With the new 63 deaths, the Covid-19 fatalities rose to 9,447 while the mortality rate dropped slightly to 1.43 percent from Tuesday’s 1.44 percent.

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The infection rate jumped to 22.02 percent from 21.02 percent on Wednesday.

During the 24-hour period, 3,256 patients recovered, taking the number of recoveries to 561,639, 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 freely defying the restriction, posing risks of more transmission.

However, the movement of city buses resumed on Wednesday, two days after the enforcement of the lockdown, as the government has allowed public transport services in city corporation areas.

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

Bangladesh has so far recorded 659,278 coronavirus cases, the DGHS handout added.

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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 4,882,565 samples, including 34,630 in the last 24 hours, the DGHS said.

Among the latest victims, 41 died in Dhaka division, 10 in Chattogram, 4 in Rajshahi, two in each Khulna, Mymensingh, one in Barishal and three in Sylhet divisions.

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So far, 5,439 coronavirus patients died in Dhaka division, 1,684 in Chattogram, 517 in Rajshahi, 597 in Khulna, 280 in Barishal, 332 in Sylhet, 381 in Rangpur and 207 in Mymensingh divisions.

So far, 7082 men (74.97) and 2,365 women (25.03) died of Covid-19.

Vaccination drive

The government launched a countrywide vaccination campaign on February 7 with doses received from the Serum Institute of India.

The second doses under the ongoing vaccination drive will begin on April 8 (Thursday), said Health Services Division Secretary Lokman Hossain.

Alarming global surge  

The worst of the Covid-19 pandemic seems to be far from over as the overall number of global corona cases has now surged past 132 million, while the death toll is fast nearing 3 million. 

According to Johns Hopkins University (JHU), the total case count reached 132,300,599 while the death toll from the virus mounted to 2,871,781 on Wednesday morning.