The rates of hospitalisation and death caused by Covid-19 might see a rise in the next four or five days, Health Minister Zahid Maleque said on Wednesday.
“There were around 250 Covid patients in hospitals on average a week ago and now it’s around 1,000. The hospitalisation will rise further, and also deaths. Health workers brace for troubles,” the minister told a programme at BCPS auditorium in the capital.
The Covid-19 infection rate was 9% on Tuesday and it rose to over 11% on Wednesday.
He said that the number of new patients was 200-250 barely 10-15 days ago but now it is around 3,000.
As the virus is spreading at an alarming rate, instructions have been given to keep 20,000 additional hospital beds ready as a preparation, said Zahid Maleque.
“We want the Covid situation to not worsen in Bangladesh as in Europe and the USA. So, the government will enforce an 11-point restriction from tomorrow (Thursday),” he said.
Bangladesh reported 2,916 more cases of infections and another four deaths in 24 hours till Wednesday morning with a continuous rise in Covid cases.
With the fresh cases reported after testing 24,705 samples, the daily positivity rate kept increasing to 11.68% from Tuesday’s 8.97% during the 24-hour period, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
The country last logged 3,167 cases on September 3, last year along with 70 deaths in 24 hours while the positivity rate was 10.76%.
The fresh numbers took the country’s total fatalities to 28,111 while the caseload mounted to 1,601,305 on Wednesday.
Among the new deceased, two were men and two women while three of the deaths were reported from Dhaka division and another from Chittagong.
The mortality rate remained unchanged at 1.76% during the period.
The recovery rate increased to 97.90% with the recovery of 266 more patients during the 24-hour period.