Covid-19 cases crosses 5.50 lakh in one year

Exactly on the 365th day of the detection of the maiden Covid-19 cases in its territory, Bangladesh on Sunday confirmed 606 more novel coronavirus cases to take the infection tally to over 5.5 lakh.

The country confirmed 11 more deaths from the novel coronavirus in the last 24 hours till Sunday at 8 am.

The total Covid-19 death toll in the country now stands at 8,462 and the number of total cases is 550,330, according to a press release issued by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

The first Covid-19 patient was identified in the country on March 8 last year and the maiden death from the virus was reported 10 days later.

It took three months for the tally of Covid-19 cases to reach the unwelcome milestone of 1 lakh on 18 June 2020.

Exactly one month later, on July 18, the number of patients identified crossed 2 lakh. The next one lakh patients were identified in one month and nine days. The number of identified patients exceeded three lakh on 26 August 2020.

Two months later, on October 26, the number of identified patients exceeded 4 lakh. After 55 days, on December 20, it reached 5 lakh.

Of these, 4,019 Covid-19 patients were identified on 2 July 2020, which is the highest single-day rise so far.

The coronavirus situation in the country intensified in June last year. From June to August, the numbers of infections and deaths were the highest in the country. In these three months, 2,65,847 people tested positive for Covid-19 and 3,631 died from it. Since September, the number of new infections has been on the decline.

From June to mid-August in 2020, coronavirus infection rates in the country hovered between 20% and 23%. On 3 August, the daily infection rate was 31.91% -- the highest infection rate in a single day. The rate of infection started to decrease at the end of August.

In the last 24 days, the average infection rate was 4.30%.   

The country on 7 February this year rolled out the much-anticipated Covid-19 vaccination programme and so far immunised more than 2% of its population.

On Sunday – the 23rd day of the mass vaccination campaign, Bangladesh inoculated more than 1 lakh people, said the health directorate. Of them, 23 citizens showed mild side effects.

So far, the country has vaccinated 37.89 lakh people. As of Sunday at 5:30 pm, 50.17 lakh people have registered for Covid-19 vaccine in the country.