United News of Bangladesh

The overall number of global Covid cases has now surged past 239 million, despite the ongoing mass inoculations in many countries. According to Johns Hopkins University (JHU), the total Covid case count and fatalities stand at 239, 121, 766 and 4,873,471 respectively as of Thursday morning. The US has recorded 44,681,561 cases and 719,515 fatalities to date, according to the university data. Brazil currently has the world's second-highest pandemic death toll after the United States and the third-largest caseload after the United States and India. Brazil has registered 21,597, 949 cases so far. The country's Covid death toll has also risen to 601,574 as it has been experiencing a new wave of cases since January. Read:Dubai's Expo 2020 reveals 3 worker deaths from COVID-19 India's Covid-19 tally rose to 34,001,743 on Wednesday, as 15,823 new cases were registered during the past 24 hours across the country, showed the federal health ministry's latest data.  Besides, as many as 226 deaths due to the pandemic since Tuesday morning took the total death toll to 451,189. Situation in Bangladesh Covid-19 claimed 17 more lives in Bangladesh and infected 518 others in 24 hours till Wednesday morning. With the fresh numbers, the Covid-19 fatalities reached 27,730 in the country while the caseload mounted to 15,64,019, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS). Of the latest deceased, nine were women and eight men. Read: US hits 700,000 COVID deaths just as cases begin to fall Thirteen of them died in Dhaka division, one in Chattogram, two in Khulna and one in Barishal divisions. Bangladesh logged seven Covid-19 deaths on October 8, the lowest since March 17 this year when the country recorded 11 such deaths. The fresh cases were detected after testing 22,153 samples With this, the daily-case positivity rate declined slightly to 2.34% percent. However, the mortality rate remained static at 1.77%. However, the recovery rate decreased slightly to 97.54% from Tuesday’s 97.55, with 505 more patients getting cured during the period from Monday’s 97.53%. So far, 15,25,673 people have recovered from the deadly virus infections, the DGHS added.  

The world hit another grim Covid-19 milestone on Saturday, as the total caseload surpassed 130 million. According to Johns Hopkins University (JHU), the total case count reached 130,126,796 while the death toll from the deadly virus climbed to 2,836,682 on Saturday morning. The US has so far logged 30,606,648 cases, with 554,069 fatalities. The North American country has been sowing the world's highest number of cases and deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. In Brazil, a total of 12,910,082 people have so far been found infected with the virus. The death toll in the country stood at 328,206 as Saturday morning, as per the university data. In March alone, as many as 66,868 people died of Covid-19 in the Latin America's largest and most populous country. Also read; Global Covid-19 death toll hits 2.7 million Mexico is the third worst-hit country in the world in terms of deaths, as it has recorded 203,664 deaths as of Saturday morning. India’s total caseload and fatalities currently stand at 12,303,131 and 163,396, respectively, as per official figures. Coronavirus cases were first reported in China in December 2019. To date, countries around the world have reported 130 million cases and 2.8 million deaths, according to Johns Hopkins data. Several vaccines have been developed to fight the virus. Those developed by Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Oxford-AstraZeneca are among them. Situation in Bangladesh Bangladesh Friday recorded more than 6,000 new coronavirus cases for the second day in the row, as the government ramps up efforts to contain the transmission of the virus. Also read: Covid-19: Bangladesh reports highest daily cases in 9 months It was the fourth time in five days that Bangladesh reported its highest daily coronavirus cases, when the health authorities confirmed 6,830 new infections on Friday afternoon. On Wednesday, the number of new cases was 5,358. It was 5,042 on Tuesday and 5,181 on Monday. There is hardly any bed available at hospitals treating coronavirus patients. The government is increasing the number of beds and Covid-designated hospitals to deal with the situation. Bangladesh has so far recorded 624,594 coronavirus cases, according to a handout issued by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS). During the 24-hour period until Friday morning, 2,473 patients recovered, taking the number of recoveries to 547,411. Bangladesh reported its first cases on March 8 last year and confirmed the first death from the virus 10 days later. Meanwhile, the fatalities reached 9,155 Friday, with 50 new deaths. The mortality rate now stands at 1.47 percent. Also read: Covid-19: Bangladesh records 6,000+ cases for 2nd straight day Coronavirus claimed 568 lives in January this year, 281 in February and 638 in March. Govt strengthens protective steps The daily surge prompted the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to issue an 18-point directive on March 29 to prevent the transmission of the virus. On the same day, the Health Ministry proposed strict measures like partial lockdowns for some places with higher Covid-19 transmission rates. Other recommendations made by the ministry include closure of amusement centres and picnic spots, ban on religious gatherings, limiting wedding ceremonies, strengthening quarantine systems, limiting passengers in public transport, and limiting attendance in offices. It also suggested strong enforcement of the ‘no mask, no service’ policy, increasing the number of mobile courts and slapping fines on health guideline violators. Authorities in various districts have shut down amusement centres and are urging people to wear masks. But a large number of people are still reluctant to follow Covid protocols, putting themselves as well as others around them at risk. Vaccination drive The government launched a countrywide vaccination campaign on February 7 with doses received from the Serum Institute of India. Bangladesh inked an agreement with Serum in December last year for acquiring 30 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. Serum is supposed to supply the doses between January and June this year – 5 million each month.  

A top World Health Organization expert on the coronavirus pandemic said Monday the weekly global count of deaths from COVID-19 is rising again, a “worrying sign” after about six weeks of declines.

The confirmed cases of coronavirus exceeded 114 million across the globe as of Monday.

The world is nearing the grim milestone of 111 million Covid-19 cases, despite high rates of vaccination.

The global Covid-19 cases have surpassed 106 million on Monday.

A new study by a UK-based leading deep tech analytical agency has identified the key trends in the rise of Asia’s technological, economic and financial development prospects.

The confirmed Covid-19 cases globally surpassed 96.8 million with over 2.07 million deaths till Thursday morning, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University (JHU).

Bangladesh’s Covid-19 tally reached 529,031 on Tuesday with the detection of 702 new cases.

Pakistan’s planning minister says the country’s drug regulatory authority has approved the use of Oxford-AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine and the government is trying to make it available by the first quarter of the year.