COVID-19
1st case of Omicron sub-variant BF.7 detected in Bangladesh
A patient infected with Omicron sub-variant BF.7 has been found in Bangladesh, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) confirmed on Sunday.
He is one of the four returnees from China who tested positive for Covid-19 at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka on Monday and were then kept in isolation, said Prof. Dr Najmul Islam, director (diseases control) of Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
Dr Nazmul said they are not worried about detection of Omicron sub-variant case in the country.
“We don’t anyone to get panicked as our positivity rate is now below one percent. But we have taken the matter seriously and trying to prevent its spread,” he said.
Read more: Amid surge in Omicron BF.7 in countries, DGHS asks for necessary steps at airports and other entry points
Replying to a question, he said that they are closely monitoring the situation and testing those regularly who are returning to the country from the affected countries.
Those who tested positive for Covid-19 are being sent to the isolation centers, he added.
In the wake of the surge in the new sub-variant of Covid-19 infections, Omicron BF.7, in different countries including China and India, the government has asked all to take necessary steps in maintaining health guidelines in all airports, land ports and river ports across the country.
The Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) issued a notice in this regard on December 26.
Read more: Four Chinese citizens sent to isolation from airport after testing Covid positive
The emergence of new sub-variant Omicron BF.7 is most likely responsible for the current surge of COVID-19 infection in China, India and other countries which is more transmissible, said DGHS.
To contain the spread of Covid, DGHS has instructed the authorities concerned to strengthen surveillance and screening of people coming to Bangladesh from countries including China, India, Japan, South Korea, USA, France, Brazil and Germany.
Bangladesh logs 22 more Covid cases
Bangladesh reported 22 more Covid cases in the 24 hours till Thursday morning.
With the new numbers, the country's total caseload rose to 2,037,089, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
However, the official death toll from the disease remained unchanged at 29,439 as no new fatalities were reported.
Read more: Bangladesh logs 21 more Covid cases Bangladesh logs 21 more Covid cases
The daily case test positivity increased to 1.09 from Wednesday's 0.79 percent as 2,133 samples were tested during the period.
The mortality and recovery rates remained unchanged at 1.45 percent and 97.57 percent respectively.
In November, the country reported 10 Covid-linked deaths and 1,345 cases.
Bangladesh registered its highest daily caseload of 16,230 on July 28 last year and daily fatalities of 264 on August 10 the same year.
Global Covid cases top 662 million
The overall number of global Covid-19 cases has now crossed 662 million.
According to the latest global data, the total case count mounted to 662,650,864 while the death toll from the virus reached 6,688,509 on Wednesday morning.
The US has recorded 102,307,321 cases so far, while 1,116,365 people have died from the virus in the country, both highest counts around the world.
India's daily COVID-19 caseload Tuesday decreased to 157, according to the federal health ministry data, a decrease from Monday's daily cases of 196.
The country also logged one related death during the past 24 hours, pushing the overall death toll to 530,696 since the beginning of the pandemic, the ministry said.
Read: Reports of severe COVID in China are "extremely concerning", WHO
Meanwhile, France has registered 39,159,757 Covid-19 cases and 161,152 deaths so far from the deadly virus, the global data showed.
Malaysia recorded 423 new COVID-19 infections as of midnight Tuesday, bringing the total tally to 5,024,422, according to the health ministry.
Another six new deaths have been reported from the pandemic, taking the death toll to 36,841.
Covid in Bangladesh
Bangladesh reported 15 more Covid cases in the 24 hours till Tuesday morning.
With the new numbers, the country's total caseload rose to 2,037,046, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
Read: Four Chinese citizens sent to isolation from airport after testing Covid positive
However, the official death toll from the disease remained unchanged at 29,439 as no new fatalities were reported.
The daily case test positivity increased to 0.49 percent from Monday’s 0.47 percent as 3,077 samples were tested during the period.
The mortality rate remained unchanged at 1.45 percent while recovery rate rose to 97.57 percent.
China races to vaccinate elderly, but many are reluctant
Chinese authorities are going door to door and paying people older than 60 to get vaccinated against COVID-19. But even as cases surge, 64-year-old Li Liansheng said his friends are alarmed by stories of fevers, blood clots and other side effects.
“When people hear about such incidents, they may not be willing to take the vaccines,” said Li, who had been vaccinated before he caught COVID-19. A few days after his 10-day bout with the virus, Li is nursing a sore throat and cough. He said it was like a “normal cold” with a mild fever.
China has joined other countries in treating cases instead of trying to stamp out virus transmission by dropping or easing rules on testing, quarantines and movement as it tries to reverse an economic slump. But the shift has flooded hospitals with feverish, wheezing patients.
The National Health Commission announced a campaign Nov. 29 to raise the vaccination rate among older Chinese, which health experts say is crucial to avoiding a health care crisis. It’s also the biggest hurdle before the ruling Communist Party can lift the last of the world’s most stringent antivirus restrictions.
China kept case numbers low for two years with a “zero-COVID” strategy that isolated cities and confined millions of people to their homes. Now, as it backs off that approach, it is facing the widespread outbreaks that other countries have already gone through.
The health commission has recorded only six COVID-19 fatalities this month, bringing the country’s official toll to 5,241. That is despite multiple reports by families of relatives dying.
China only counts deaths from pneumonia or respiratory failure in its official COVID-19 toll, a health official said last week. That unusually narrow definition excludes many deaths other countries would attribute to COVID-19.
Experts have forecast 1 to 2 million deaths in China through the end of 2023.
Li, who was exercising at the leafy grounds of central Beijing’s Temple of Heaven, said he is considering getting a second booster due to the publicity campaign: “As long as we know the vaccine won’t cause big side effects, we should take it.”
Neighborhood committees that form the lowest level of government have been ordered to find everyone 65 and older and keep track of their health. They are doing what state media call the “ideological work” of lobbying residents to persuade elderly relatives to get vaccinated.
In Beijing, the Chinese capital, the Liulidun neighborhood is promising people over 60 up to 500 yuan ($70) to get a two-dose vaccination course and one booster.
Read more: China launches Covid-19 vaccine inhaled through mouth
The National Health Commission announced Dec. 23 the number of people being vaccinated daily had more than doubled to 3.5 million nationwide. But that still is a small fraction of the tens of millions of shots that were being administered every day in early 2021.
Older people are put off by potential side effects of Chinese-made vaccines, for which the government hasn’t announced results of testing on people in their 60s and older.
Li said a 55-year-old friend suffered fevers and blood clots after being vaccinated. He said they can’t be sure the shot was to blame, but his friend is reluctant to get another.
“It’s also said the virus keeps mutating,” Li said. “How do we know if the vaccines we take are useful?”
Some are reluctant because they have diabetes, heart problems and other health complications, despite warnings from experts that it is even more urgent for them to be vaccinated because the risks of COVID-19 are more serious than potential vaccine side effects in almost everyone.
A 76-year-old man taking his daily walk around the Temple of Heaven with the aid of a stick said he wants to be vaccinated but has diabetes and high blood pressure. The man, who would give only his surname, Fu, said he wears masks and tries to avoid crowds.
Older people also felt little urgency because low case numbers before the latest surge meant few faced risk of infection. That earlier lack of infections, however, left China with few people who have developed antibodies against the virus.
“Now, the families and relatives of the elderly people should make it clear to them that an infection can cause serious illness and even death,” said Jiang Shibo of the Fudan University medical school in Shanghai.
Read more: Reports of severe COVID in China are "extremely concerning", WHO
More than 90% of people in China have been vaccinated but only about two-thirds of those over 80, according to the National Health Commission. According to its 2020 census, China has 191 million people aged 65 and over — a group that, on its own, would be the eighth most populous country, ahead of Bangladesh.
“Coverage rates for people aged over 80 still need to be improved,” the Shanghai news outlet The Paper said. “The elderly are at high risk.”
Du Ming’s son arranged to have the 100-year-old vaccinated, according to his caretaker, Li Zhuqing, who was pushing a face-mask-clad Du through a park in a wheelchair. Li agreed with that approach because none of the family members have been infected, which means they’d be more likely to bring the disease home to Du if they were exposed.
Health officials declined requests by reporters to visit vaccination centers. Two who briefly entered centers were ordered to leave when employees found out who they were.
Cautionary measures taken at Sonamasjid land port to prevent new sub-variant of Covid-19
Sonamsjid land port authorities have taken additional cautionary measures to prevent the spread of Omicron BF.7, a new sub-variant of Covid-19.
Following the instruction of the Director General of Health Services (DGHS) some additional measures have been taken to prevent the new sub-variant of Covid-19, said Dr. SM Mahmudur Rashid, civil surgeon of Chapainawabganj.
Indian truck drivers and their helpers are being allowed to enter the country through the border after health screening, he added.
Besides, the members of the medical teams are doing their routine works at the port, Rashid said.
Earlier on Sunday, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) issued an alert at airports, land ports and seaports as the new sub-variant BF.7 of Omicron was detected in China and India.
It also asked the authorities concerned to take steps so that people, coming from those countries, go through tests and digital thermal scanner and thermometer are used at the entry points of the country.
Meanwhile, four returnees from China were sent to isolation after they tested positive for Covid-19 at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka Monday (December 26) afternoon.
Bangladesh reports zero Covid death, 7 new cases
Bangladesh reported seven more Covid cases in the 24 hours till Monday morning.
With the new numbers, the country's total caseload rose to 2,037,031, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
However, the official death toll from the disease remained unchanged at 29,439 as no new fatalities were reported.
The daily case test positivity increased to 0.47 percent from Sunday’s 0.44 percent as 1,486 samples were tested during the period.
Read more: Bangladesh reports another death from Covid, 6 more cases
The mortality and recovery rates remained unchanged at 1.45 percent and 97.56 percent, respectively.
In November, the country reported 10 Covid-linked deaths and 1,345 cases.
Bangladesh registered its highest daily caseload of 16,230 on July 28 last year and daily fatalities of 264 on August 10 the same year.
Read more: Amid surge in Omicron BF.7 in countries, DGHS asks for necessary steps at airports and other entry points
Packed ICUs, crowded crematoriums: COVID roils Chinese towns
Yao Ruyan paced frantically outside the fever clinic of a county hospital in China’s industrial Hebei province, 70 kilometers (43 miles) southwest of Beijing. Her mother-in-law had COVID-19 and needed urgent medical care, but all hospitals nearby were full.
“They say there’s no beds here,” she barked into her phone.
As China grapples with its first-ever national COVID-19 wave, emergency wards in small cities and towns southwest of Beijing are overwhelmed. Emergency rooms are turning away ambulances, relatives of sick people are searching for open beds, and patients are slumped on benches in hospital corridors and lying on floors for a lack of beds.
Yao’s elderly mother-in-law had fallen ill a week ago with the coronavirus. They went first to a local hospital, where lung scans showed signs of pneumonia. But the hospital couldn’t handle serious COVID-19 cases, Yao was told. She was told to go to larger hospitals in adjacent counties.
As Yao and her husband drove from hospital to hospital, they found all the wards were full. Zhuozhou Hospital, an hour’s drive from Yao’s hometown, was the latest disappointment.
Yao charged toward the check-in counter, past wheelchairs frantically moving elderly patients. Yet again, she was told the hospital was full, and that she would have to wait.
“I’m furious,” Yao said, tearing up, as she clutched the lung scans from the local hospital. “I don’t have much hope. We’ve been out for a long time and I’m terrified because she’s having difficulty breathing.”
Over two days, Associated Press journalists visited five hospitals and two crematoriums in towns and small cities in Baoding and Langfang prefectures, in central Hebei province. The area was the epicenter of one of China’s first outbreaks after the state loosened COVID-19 controls in November and December. For weeks, the region went quiet, as people fell ill and stayed home.
Read: Reports of severe COVID in China are "extremely concerning", WHO
Many have now recovered. Today, markets are bustling, diners pack restaurants and cars are honking in snarling traffic, even as the virus is spreading in other parts of China. In recent days, headlines in state media said the area is “ starting to resume normal life.”
But life in central Hebei’s emergency wards and crematoriums is anything but normal. Even as the young go back to work and lines at fever clinics shrink, many of Hebei’s elderly are falling into critical condition. As they overrun intensive care units and funeral homes, it could be a harbinger of what’s to come for the rest of China.
The Chinese government has reported only seven COVID-19 deaths since restrictions were loosened dramatically on Dec. 7, bringing the country’s total toll to 5,241. On Tuesday, a Chinese health official said that China only counts deaths from pneumonia or respiratory failure in its official COVID-19 death toll, a narrow definition that excludes many deaths that would be attributed to COVID-19 in other places.
Experts have forecast between a million and 2 million deaths in China through the end of next year, and a top World Health Organization official warned that Beijing’s way of counting would “underestimate the true death toll.”
At Baoding No. 2 Hospital in Zhuozhou on Wednesday, patients thronged the hallway of the emergency ward. The sick were breathing with the help of respirators. One woman wailed after doctors told her that a loved one had died.
The ER was so crowded, ambulances were turned away. A medical worker shouted at relatives wheeling in a patient from an arriving ambulance.
“There’s no oxygen or electricity in this corridor!” the worker exclaimed. “If you can’t even give him oxygen, how can you save him?”
“If you don’t want any delays, turn around and get out quickly!” she said.
The relatives left, hoisting the patient back into the ambulance. It took off, lights flashing.
Read: China reduces COVID-19 case number reporting as virus surges
In two days of driving in the region, AP journalists passed around thirty ambulances. On one highway toward Beijing, two ambulances followed each other, lights flashing, as a third passed by heading in the opposite direction. Dispatchers are overwhelmed, with Beijing city officials reporting a sixfold surge in emergency calls earlier this month.
Some ambulances are heading to funeral homes. At the Zhuozhou crematorium, furnaces are burning overtime as workers struggle to cope with a spike in deaths in the past week, according to one employee. A funeral shop worker estimated it is burning 20 to 30 bodies a day, up from three to four before COVID-19 measures were loosened.
“There’s been so many people dying,” said Zhao Yongsheng, a worker at a funeral goods shop near a local hospital. “They work day and night, but they can’t burn them all.”
At a crematorium in Gaobeidian, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Zhuozhou, the body of one 82-year-old woman was brought from Beijing, a two-hour drive, because funeral homes in China’s capital were packed, according to the woman’s grandson, Liang.
“They said we’d have to wait for 10 days,” Liang said, giving only his surname because of the sensitivity of the situation.
Bangladesh reports another death from Covid, 6 more cases
Bangladesh logged another death from Covid-19 with six more Covid cases in 24 hours till Sunday morning.
With the new numbers, the country's total fatality rose to 29,439 and the caseload to 2,037,024, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
The daily case test positivity declined to 0.44 percent from Saturday’s 0.78 percent as 1,372 samples were tested during the period.
read more: Bangladesh reports zero Covid death, 7 new cases
The mortality and recovery rates remained unchanged at 1.45 percent and 97.56 percent, respectively.
In November, the country reported 10 Covid-linked deaths and 1,345 cases.
Bangladesh registered its highest daily caseload of 16,230 on July 28 last year and daily fatalities of 264 on August 10 the same year.
Packed ICUs, crowded crematoriums: COVID roils Chinese towns
Yao Ruyan paced frantically outside the fever clinic of a county hospital in China’s industrial Hebei province, 70 kilometers (43 miles) southwest of Beijing. Her mother-in-law had COVID-19 and needed urgent medical care, but all hospitals nearby were full.
“They say there’s no beds here,” she barked into her phone.
As China grapples with its first-ever national COVID-19 wave, emergency wards in small cities and towns southwest of Beijing are overwhelmed. Intensive care units are turning away ambulances, relatives of sick people are searching for open beds, and patients are slumped on benches in hospital corridors and lying on floors for a lack of beds.
Yao’s elderly mother-in-law had fallen ill a week ago with the coronavirus. They went first to a local hospital, where lung scans showed signs of pneumonia. But the hospital couldn’t handle serious COVID-19 cases, Yao was told. She was told to go to larger hospitals in adjacent counties. As Yao and her husband drove from hospital to hospital, they found all the wards were full. Zhuozhou Hospital, an hour’s drive from Yao’s hometown, was the latest disappointment.
Yao charged toward the check-in counter, past wheelchairs frantically moving elderly patients. Yet again, she was told the hospital was full, and that she would have to wait.
“I’m furious,” Yao said, tearing up, as she clutched the lung scans from the local hospital. “I don’t have much hope. We’ve been out for a long time and I’m terrified because she’s having difficulty breathing.”
Over two days, Associated Press journalists visited five hospitals and two crematoriums in towns and small cities in Baoding and Langfang prefectures, in central Hebei province. The area was the epicenter of one of China’s first outbreaks after the state loosened COVID-19 controls in November and December. For weeks, the region went quiet, as people fell ill and stayed home.
Many have now recovered. Today, markets are bustling, diners pack restaurants and cars are honking in snarling traffic, even as the virus is spreading in other parts of China. In recent days, headlines in state media said the area is “ starting to resume normal life.”
But life in central Hebei’s emergency wards and crematoriums is anything but normal. Even as the young go back to work and lines at fever clinics shrink, many of Hebei’s elderly are falling into critical condition. As they overrun ICUs and funeral homes, it could be a harbinger of what’s to come for the rest of China. The Chinese government has reported only seven COVID-19 deaths since restrictions were loosened dramatically on Dec. 7, bringing the country’s total toll to 5,241. On Tuesday, a Chinese health official said that China only counts deaths from pneumonia or respiratory failure in its official COVID-19 death toll, a narrow definition that excludes many deaths that would be attributed to COVID-19 in other places.
Experts have forecast between a million and 2 million deaths in China through the end of next year, and a top World Health Organization official warned that Beijing’s way of counting would “underestimate the true death toll.” At Baoding No. 2 Hospital in Zhuozhou on Wednesday, patients thronged the hallway of the emergency ward. The sick were breathing with the help of respirators. One woman wailed after doctors told her that a loved one had died.
The ICU was so crowded, ambulances were turned away. A medical worker shouted at relatives wheeling in a patient from an arriving ambulance.
“There’s no oxygen or electricity in this corridor!” the worker exclaimed. “If you can’t even give him oxygen, how can you save him?”
“If you don’t want any delays, turn around and get out quickly!” she said.
The relatives left, hoisting the patient back into the ambulance. It took off, lights flashing.
Read more: Reports of severe COVID in China are "extremely concerning", WHO
In two days of driving in the region, AP journalists passed around thirty ambulances. On one highway toward Beijing, two ambulances followed each other, lights flashing, as a third passed by heading in the opposite direction. Dispatchers are overwhelmed, with Beijing city officials reporting a sixfold surge in emergency calls earlier this month. Some ambulances are heading to funeral homes. At the Zhuozhou crematorium, furnaces are burning overtime as workers struggle to cope with a spike in deaths in the past week, according to one employee. A funeral shop worker estimated it is burning 20 to 30 bodies a day, up from three to four before COVID-19 measures were loosened.
“There’s been so many people dying,” said Zhao Yongsheng, a worker at a funeral goods shop near a local hospital. “They work day and night, but they can’t burn them all.”
At a crematorium in Gaobeidian, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Zhuozhou, the body of one 82-year-old woman was brought from Beijing, a two-hour drive, because funeral homes in China’s capital were packed, according to the woman’s grandson, Liang.
“They said we’d have to wait for 10 days,” Liang said, giving only his surname because of the sensitivity of the situation. Liang’s grandmother had been unvaccinated, Liang added, when she came down with coronavirus symptoms, and had spent her final days hooked to a respirator in a Beijing ICU.
Over two hours at the Gaobeidian crematorium on Thursday, AP journalists observed three ambulances and two vans unload bodies. A hundred or so people huddled in groups, some in traditional white Chinese mourning attire. They burned funeral paper and set off fireworks.
“There’s been a lot!” a worker said when asked about the number of COVID-19 deaths, before funeral director Ma Xiaowei stepped in and brought the journalists to meet a local government official.
As the official listened in, Ma confirmed there were more cremations, but said he didn’t know if COVID-19 was involved. He blamed the extra deaths on the arrival of winter.
“Every year during this season, there’s more,” Ma said. “The pandemic hasn’t really shown up” in the death toll, he said, as the official listened and nodded.
Even as anecdotal evidence and modeling suggests large numbers of people are getting infected and dying, some Hebei officials deny the virus has had much impact.
“There’s no so-called explosion in cases, it’s all under control,” said Wang Ping, the administrative manager of Gaobeidian Hospital, speaking by the hospital’s main gate. “There’s been a slight decline in patients.”
Wang said only a sixth of the hospital’s 600 beds were occupied, but refused to allow AP journalists to enter. Two ambulances came to the hospital during the half hour AP journalists were present, and a patient’s relative told the AP they were turned away from Gaobeidian’s emergency ward because it was full.
Thirty kilometers (19 miles) south in the town of Baigou, emergency ward doctor Sun Yana was candid, even as local officials listened in.
“There are more people with fevers, the number of patients has indeed increased,” Sun said. She hesitated, then added, “I can’t say whether I’ve become even busier or not. Our emergency department has always been busy.”
Read more: China limits how it defines COVID deaths in official count
The Baigou New Area Aerospace Hospital was quiet and orderly, with empty beds and short lines as nurses sprayed disinfectant. COVID-19 patients are separated from others, staff said, to prevent cross-infection. But they added that serious cases are being directed to hospitals in bigger cities, because of limited medical equipment.
The lack of ICU capacity in Baigou, which has about 60,000 residents, reflects a nationwide problem. Experts say medical resources in China’s villages and towns, home to about 500 million of China’s 1.4 billion people, lag far behind those of big cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. Some counties lack a single ICU bed.
As a result, patients in critical condition are forced to go to bigger cities for treatment. In Bazhou, a city 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of Baigou, a hundred or more people packed the emergency ward of Langfang No. 4 People’s Hospital on Thursday night.
Guards worked to corral the crowds as people jostled for positions. With no space in the ward, patients spilled into corridors and hallways. Sick people sprawled on blankets on the floor as staff frantically wheeled gurneys and ventilators. In a hallway, half a dozen patients wheezed on metal benches as oxygen tanks pumped air into their noses.
Outside a CT scan room, a woman sitting on a bench wheezed as snot dribbled out of her nostrils into crumpled tissues. A man sprawled out on a stretcher outside the emergency ward as medical workers stuck electrodes to his chest. By a check-in counter, a woman sitting on a stool gasped for air as a young man held her hand.
“Everyone in my family has got COVID,” one man asked at the counter, as four others clamored for attention behind him. “What medicine can we get?”
In a corridor, a man paced as he shouted into his cellphone.
“The number of people has exploded!” he said. “There’s no way you can get care here, there’s far too many people.”
It wasn’t clear how many patients had COVID-19. Some had only mild symptoms, illustrating another issue, experts say: People in China rely more heavily on hospitals than in other countries, meaning it’s easier for emergency medical resources to be overloaded.
Over two hours, AP journalists witnessed half a dozen or more ambulances pull up to the hospital’s ICU and load critical patients to sprint to other hospitals, even as cars pulled up with dozens of new patients.
A beige van pulled up to the ICU and honked frantically at a waiting ambulance. “Move!” the driver shouted.
“Let’s go, let’s go!” a panicked voice cried. Five people hoisted a man bundled in blankets out of the back of the van and rushed him into the hospital. Security guards shouted in the packed ward: “Make way, make way!”
The guard asked a patient to move, but backed off when a relative snarled at him. The bundled man was laid on the floor instead, amid doctors running back and forth. “Grandpa!” a woman cried, crouching over the patient.
Medical workers rushed over a ventilator. “Can you open his mouth?” someone shouted.
As white plastic tubes were fitted onto his face, the man began to breathe more easily.
Others were not so lucky. Relatives surrounding another bed began tearing up as an elderly woman’s vitals flatlined. A man tugged a cloth over the woman’s face, and they stood, silently, before her body was wheeled away.
Within minutes, another patient had taken her place.
Bangladesh reports zero Covid death, 7 new cases
Bangladesh reported seven more Covid cases in the 24 hours to Saturday morning.
With the new numbers, the country's total caseload rose to 2,037,018, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
However, the official death toll from the disease remained unchanged at 29,438 as no new fatalities were reported.
Read more: Bangladesh reports zero Covid death, eight new cases
The daily case test positivity rose to 0.78 percent from Friday's 0.37 percent from as 894 samples were tested during the period.
The mortality rate remained unchanged at 1.45 percent while the recovery rate slightly declined to 97.56 percent, respectively.
In November, the country reported 10 Covid-linked deaths and 1,345 cases.
Bangladesh registered its highest daily caseload of 16,230 on July 28 last year and daily fatalities of 264 on August 10 the same year.