Don’t throw away masks, safety measures: Experts  

People must continue wearing face masks, and maintaining social distancing, since the Covid-19 pandemic is not going away on its own anytime soon, said public health experts in the face of a declining infection rate.

They also urged the government for adequate quarantine arrangements, and to isolate the positive cases so that the infection chain can be broken. 

"It is almost 100% certain that our infection rate will spiral again. Our action will dictate whether the surge will be sudden, or a gradual one," Dr M Mushtuq Husain, adviser at the Institute of Epidemiology Disease Control and Research (IEDCR), told the Business Standard.

Dr Mushtuq emphasised controlling the infections of the Covid clusters in some districts such as Munshiganj, Faridpur, and Gopalganj with the infection rates still above 20%.

Bangladesh on Wednesday, however, reported a 10.11% Covid positivity rate in the past 24 hours until Wednesday morning. The infection curve has been on a gradual fall for the last week.

In the past 24 hours, the country registered 79 Covid-19 deaths with 3,062 fresh cases. The latest counts raised the total death tally to 26,274, while the total caseload stood at 1,503,680.

Dr Husain said infection rates usually fall after reaching the peak since widespread infections provide people with some sort of immunity for the time being. Besides, more citizens tend to follow the health guidelines strictly when the virus is on a rampage.

"For now, we just need to remain cautious and speed up the vaccination to cover half of the population under the inoculation coverage immediately," he noted.

Shafiun Shimul, an associate professor at the University of Dhaka, and a team member of the CoMo (Covid-19 Modelling) Consortium at the University of Oxford, also believes there is no alternative to remaining cautious.

"The delta variant is now dominating the infection map across the globe. Still, there are new strains to turn up as it is certain that the pandemic is not going to be over on its own anytime soon," he further said.

Shimul stressed prioritising the marginalised people in the inoculation campaign.   

Decision on inoculating schoolgoers soon  

The government is likely to come up with its decision about immunising school students.

"A high-level government meeting on Thursday may take the decision," health directorate Director General Prof Dr Abul Bashar Mohammad Khurshid Alam told journalists on Wednesday.

"The prime minister wants school students to be immunised so that educational institutions can be reopened. But we did not get any directives on it from the World Health Organisation," he said.

Referring to the inoculation of the school students in the USA, Dr Khurshid Alam said that the US did it according to their protocol, and Bangladesh may follow the lead.

He told journalists that the inoculation of teachers and university students is almost done. 

10 lakh Pfizer vaccines arrived

Ten lakh doses of Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine arrived at the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka at 5:30pm on Wednesday.

This consignment of vaccines is a gift from the United States.

Earlier on 23 August, Health Minister Zahid Maleque confirmed at an informal media briefing that 60 lakh doses of Pfizer vaccine would be arriving from the United States in September.