Covid-19: Bangladesh records single daily death, 3rd time in November

Bangladesh registered only a single death from Covid-19 in the last 24 hours till Tuesday morning, for the third time in November.

Daily deaths came down to one on November 6, first time in one and a half years, and again on November 11.

Besides, in the 24-hour period, the country also recorded 273 new cases while seeing 368 patients recover, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

The latest additions took the country’s death toll to 27,981, the total caseload to 1,576,284 and the total number of recoveries to 1,540,965.

A total 19,802 samples were tested at 846 labs across the country during the 24-hour period, yielding a positivity rate of 1.38%.

According to the data, the country’s overall Covid-19 mortality rate until Tuesday morning remained static at 1.78%, overall recovery rate at 97.76%, and the overall positivity lowered to 14.48%.

The seven-day moving average of single-day deaths in Bangladesh was 3.28 on Tuesday.

Dhaka division logged the single fatality and counted 225 cases, the highest among the divisions. No new cases were reported in 30 districts of the country.

Around 60.23 million people in the country have received their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine. Of them, some 36.68 million have taken both doses, according to DGHS data collected till Monday.

Bangladesh reported its first three cases of Covid-19, a severe acute respiratory illness caused by a strain of coronavirus later named Sars-CoV-2, on March 8, 2020. The first death was reported 10 days later.

The country, however, has been witnessing infection rates below or around 2% for the past few weeks. The country last recorded an infection rate of over 3% on October 4 when the figure stood at 3.19%.

A large number of the population has also been vaccinated with the government expecting more vaccine doses by the end of this month from multiple sources.

However, experts have warned against complacency as many countries are seeing a surge in infections yet again.

Meanwhile, the discovery of a new variant, Omicron, has triggered a global alarm. 

The new mutation was first discovered in South Africa and have since been detected in Belgium, Botswana, Israel and Hong Kong.

Called B.1.1.529, Omicron is the fifth variant of concern designated by the World Health Organization (WHO).

The fast-spreading coronavirus has so far claimed over 5.2 million lives and infected over 262 million people throughout the world, according to Worldometer.

More than 237 million people have recovered from the disease, which has affected 223 countries and territories across the planet.