Covid-19: Bangladesh sees highest daily cases, test positivity rate since September

Bangladesh in a 24-hour span until Monday morning registered 28 more deaths and 2,419 new cases of Covid-19 —the highest since September 2.

Over the 24 hours, the country recorded a whopping 15.06% test positivity rate. The indicator has been on an upward trend since November 18, and the latest daily test positivity rate is the highest in the country since September 5.  

With the latest figures from the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), the tally of deaths and cases surged to 6,416 and 449,760, respectively.

Of the 28 deceased -- 21 men and seven women -- 21 died in Dhaka division, four in Chittagong, two in Rajshahi, and one in Sylhet division.

Two of the deceased were in their 40s, five in their 50s and 21 were aged over 60.

All died at different hospitals in the country.

201 die in a week

A total 201 people succumbed to infections from the deadly virus in the past week ending Monday, with the highest 39 deaths recorded on November 17—the highest number of deaths in nearly two months.  

Of the total 6,416 deaths, 3,398 took place in Dhaka division, 1,238 in Chattogram division, 391 in Rajshahi division, 488 in Khulna division, 215 in Barishal division, 263 in Sylhet division, 291 in Rangpur division and 132 in Mymensingh division.

So far, 4,930 men (76.84%) and 1,486 women (23.16%) have died from Covid-19 across the country.

The mortality rate against the total number of cases detected so far stands at 1.43%.          

The DGHS said 16,240 samples were collected from suspected Covid-19 patients in the last 24 hours, but 16,059 were tested at 117 authorized labs — government and private — across the country.

To date, as many as 2,665,131 tests have been conducted in the country, leading to an overall infection rate of 16.88%.

The health authorities said 2,183 people recovered from the disease over the preceding 24 hours.

So far, at least 364,611 patients — 81.07% of all infected— have made full recoveries across the country.

On March 8, health authorities in Bangladesh reported the first three cases of Covid-19, a severe acute respiratory illness caused by a new coronavirus strain named Sars-CoV-2.

The novel coronavirus broke out in China's Wuhan in late December last year and quickly spread throughout the world, becoming a pandemic in less than three months.

The fast spreading coronavirus has claimed 1,394,833 lives and infected 59,060,168 people across the world till Monday afternoon, according to Worldometer.

As many as 40,824,218 people have recovered from Covid-19, which has spread to 218 countries and territories across the planet.