Covid-19 infection rate, deaths decline

Bangladesh saw a decline in both the daily infection rate and the death toll from Covid-19 Wednesday. 

The Covid-19 daily infection rate has dropped further to 7.68 percent in Bangladesh. The country saw 11 deaths in the last 24 hours. 

During the same period, 1,865 people tested positive for Covid-19. The number of Covid-19 cases now stands at 562,752 in the country.

Despite the lower infection rate, statistics indicate that on Wednesday Bangladesh recorded the highest number of cases detected in a single day in the past three months.

On Monday, the infection rate climbed up to 9.48 percent, the highest since 21 December, when the rate was 9.38 percent. 

It decreased down to 8.29 percent Tuesday. 

In a press release today, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) also reported that the death rate still stands at 1.53%. The death toll from the virus now stands at 8,608 in Bangladesh.

Among the latest day's victims, 8 were men and 3 were women. They died in different hospitals across the country.

Eight of them hailed from Dhaka and one each from Chattogram, Khulna and Sylhet division.

Meanwhile, 24,481 samples were tested in 219 labs across the country in the past 24 hours. A total of 4,328,269 samples have been tested in the country so far.

Also, 1,510 patients were declared free of Covid-19 during the same period, raising the total number of recoveries to 515,989 with a 91.69% recovery rate.

Meanwhile, Health Minister Zahid Maleque has warned that the Covid-19 infections will continue to rise if various programmes across the country are not limited soon.  

"We can't provide treatment to lakhs of people. No hospital, even no country has so many beds. The infections will increase if the events are not limited," said the minister at a discussion held Wednesday. 

He claimed that approximately two million tourists have visited Chattogram, Rangamati, Cox's Bazar and other spots in the past one month, resulting in Covid-19 cases spike.

Neighbouring India's daily coronavirus infections have jumped by 28,903, data from the health ministry showed on Wednesday. It was the highest increase since December 13, taking the nationwide tally to 11.44 million. Deaths swelled by 188, the highest figure in two months, to stand at 159,044, data updated by the health ministry at 8am showed.

Meanwhile, Pakistan has reported 61 deaths in the last 24 hours by novel coronavirus as the number of positive cases has surged to 612,315. The nationwide tally of fatalities has jumped to 13,656 on Wednesday.

The dreaded Covid-19 claimed lives of 2,684,021 people globally and nearly 121,356,154 people were infected till date.