Bangladesh recorded 1,988 new Covid-19 cases, the highest in a day in over a month, and 34 more deaths in the 24 hours between 8am Tuesday and 8am Wednesday.
Also, 1,149 people recovered from the disease through treatment at either home or hospital during the same period, according to the latest figures released by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) on Wednesday afternoon.
The latest data took the total number of cases to 804,293, the death toll to 12,694, and the tally of recoveries to 744,065 around the country.
Wednesday’s data showed that 1,988 was the highest number of cases recorded in 24 hours in over a month. On April 30, Bangladesh had recorded 2,177 new cases.
Between Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, as many as 20,259 samples were tested at 509 authorized labs across the country, yielding a positivity rate of 9.81%.
Meanwhile, the overall Covid-19 infection rate stood at 13.44%, based on results of 5,986,022 tests conducted nationwide so far.
The DGHS statistics showed that of the total people infected since March last year, 92.51% have recovered and 1.58% died.
Of the fresh 34 deceased — 21 men and 13 women, 11 died in Dhaka Division, five each in Chittagong, Rajshahi and Khulna, three each in Sylhet and Rangpur, and two in Barisal Division.
All of them died either at state-run hospitals or private hospitals around the country.
So far, a total of 9,160 men and 3,534 women have died in Bangladesh from Covid-19, a severe acute respiratory illness caused by a new coronavirus strain that was later named Sars-CoV-2.
According to DGHS data, among the total 12,694 fatalities, 7,198 deaths occurred in Dhaka Division, 2,425 in Chittagong, 696 in Rajshahi, 797 in Khulna, 386 in Barisal, 464 in Sylhet, 470 in Rangpur, and 258 in Mymensingh Division.
Vaccination
Meanwhile, 7,248,829 people had registered for the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, purchased from the Serum Institute of Indian (SII), across Bangladesh until May 6.
Afterwards, the registration process and administration of the first shot suspended as the authorities faced a vaccine shortage when SII stopped export in light of the record-breaking surge in cases and deaths in India.
Since the vaccination drive began on January 27, some 5,820,015 people around Bangladesh have taken the first dose of the vaccine and 4,186,243 people received the second shot.
Bangladesh is currently working on procuring vaccines from other sources, including China, Russia and the US.
Alarming surge
The country had witnessed the first death from Covid-19 on March 18 last year.
Bangladesh recorded the highest number of Covid-19 fatality on April 19 this year when 112 people died in a day.
The country also recorded 7,626 cases on April 7 this year, the highest daily spike since the pandemic started here.
According to month-wise data from 2020, 51 Covid-19 cases were detected in March; 7,616 in April; 39,486 in May; 98,330 in June; 92,178 in July; 75,335 in August; 50,483 in September; 44,205 in October; 57,248 in November; and 48,578 in December.
Meanwhile, the beginning of 2021 had witnessed a drastic fall in Covid-19 cases around the country but the trend lasted for only two months — 21,629 in January and 11,077 in February.
After that, the country witnessed a sharp increase in infection as 65,079 cases were reported in March and 147,837 in April. In May, the number, however, dropped to 41,408.
On the other hand, according to month-wise data from 2020, five Covid-19 deaths were reported in March; 163 in April; 482 in May; 1,197 in June; 1,264 in July; 1,179 in August; 970 in September; 672 in October; 721 in November; and 915 in December.
And according to this year's month-wise data, 568 deaths from Covid-19 were recorded in January; 281 in February; 638 in March; 2,404 in April; and 1,169 in May.
Crossing 800,000
The country crossed the grim milestone of 800,000 infections on Monday, nearly 15 months after the health authorities detected the first three cases on March 8 last year.
It took 47 days to cross the latest mark of 800,000. The caseload had crossed 700,000 infections on April 14 and before that 600,000 on March 29.
The country needed 103 days to reach 100,000 cases, but the 200,000 cases mark was reached just 30 days later (133 days into the pandemic). However, the country has steadily taken longer to reach each subsequent 100,000 case increment.
Bangladesh took 39 days to reach 300,000 cases from 200,000, before reaching 400,000 cases from 300,000 cases in 61 days.
The country needed a slightly quicker 55 days to reach 500,000 cases from 400,000.
Global situation
Covid-19 had broken out in China's Wuhan city in late December of 2019 and quickly spread throughout the world, becoming a global pandemic in less than three months.
The world’s first death from the disease was also recorded in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, on January 11, 2020.
Since then, until Wednesday evening, the fast-spreading virus claimed more than 3,577,400 lives and infected over 171,993,800 people across the world, according to worldometer.
At the same time, over 154,510,500 people have also recovered so far from Covid-19.