Global Covid cases top 184 million

The second wave of the pandemic continues its onslaught across the world even with mass inoculations underway. The global Covid-19 caseload has now surged past 184 million.

In fact, the total caseload and fatalities stand at 184,106,914 and 3,983,705, respectively, as of Tuesday morning, according to Johns Hopkins University (JHU).

So far, 3,220,930,876 vaccine doses have been administered across the globe.

The US, which is the world's worst-hit country in terms of both cases and deaths, has so far logged 33,723,095 cases, according to JHU, while 605,567 people have lost their lives to the virus to date.

Brazil, where the catastrophe has been driven not by Delta but rather its own more infectious variant, is fast catching up with the United States when it comes to the death toll, and the South American behemoth has the third-largest caseload in the world, following the US and India.

The South American country has recorded 525,112 deaths and 18,792,511 cases, as of Tuesday morning.

India's own Covid-19 caseload rose to 30,585,229 on Monday, according to the federal health ministry's latest data.

Besides, 723 more deaths were recorded since Sunday morning, taking the death toll to 402,728.

A study conducted on 100 healthcare workers across three centres in India has found the Delta variant eight times less sensitive to antibodies generated by the Covid-19 vaccine.

The 'Sars-Cov-2 B.1.617.2 Delta Variant Emergence and Vaccine Breakthrough: Collaborative Study' also found that the variant has a much higher capacity to infect more people, according to a media report.

The collaborative study from India was conducted along with scientists from the Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Disease.

"The B.1.617.2 Delta variant not only dominates vaccine-breakthrough infections with higher respiratory viral loads compared to non-delta infections but also generates greater transmission between fully vaccinated healthcare workers, as compared to other variants B.1.1.7 (Alpha variant) or B.1.617.1 (Kappa variant)," the findings of the study revealed.

The study said the Delta variant is less sensitive to neutralising antibodies from recovered individuals, with "higher replication efficiency" as compared to the Alpha variant.

Situation in Bangladesh

Bangladesh, currently passing through the most frightful stage of the Covid-19 second wave, on Monday morning reported another record-high 164 deaths in 24 hours.

During the period, Bangladesh also broke its all-time record of cases with 9,964 fresh infections, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

This was reported just after seeing the highest 153 deaths on Sunday and highest 8,822 cases back on June 30.

The new cases were detected after testing 34,002 samples, said the DGHS. This puts the country's case positivity rate at 29.30%.

Bangladesh last recorded the highest single-day positivity rate of 28.99% on Sunday.

The new numbers took the country's death toll to 15,229 and the caseload to 954,881. However, the fatality rate remained unchanged during the period at 1.59%.

So far, 839,082 people have recovered from the disease putting the recovery rate at 87.87%, which is declining unlike other indicators.

Khulna division logged the highest 55 deaths on Monday when Dhaka saw 40 Covid deaths. Besides, 18 people died in Chattogram, 16 each in Rajshahi and Rangpur, nine in Barishal, eight in Sylhet and two in Mymensingh divisions.

Of the deceased, 148 died at different government and non-government hospitals, 15 at homes and one on the way to hospital, according to the DGHS.

The country saw 2,404 Covid deaths in April, 1,169 in May and 1,884 in June, marking those the most fatal months of this year.

Also, July was the most fatal month of 2020, reporting 1,264 deaths followed by 1,197 deaths in June that year.