Three more have died of coronavirus yesterday as Bangladesh recorded its highest single-day increase of Covid-19 cases with 54 new positive.
The total number of confirmed Covid-19 positive cases now stands at 218 in the country with zero recoveries over the last 24 hours.
The highest number of tests (981) were conducted by the health authorities yesterday across the country thus far and mostly in the capital (622) from the samples collected over the last 24 hours and earlier.
IEDCR Director Dr Meerjady Sabrina Flora informed the matter from an online health bulletin broadcast on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, most of the Covid-19 samples were however collected from Dhaka alone (563 out of 988), calling for the need of widespread countrywide sample collection and testing.
Meanwhile, at least 12 people, including five elderly men, two women, a girl, and an infant, have died from symptoms similar to Covid-19 in 11 districts between Tuesday night and yesterday.
The districts are Gazipur, Pirojpur, Manikganj, Narayanganj, Nilphamari, Shariatpur, Moulvibazar, Noakhali, Panchagarh, Rangpur, and Brahmanbaria. Of the districts, Rangpur has two deaths.
Narayanganj has the second most infected patients (46) while Dhaka has more than half of the total infections (129).
In Dhaka, there are nine testing facilities as opposed to seven testing facilities across Bangladesh, including two in Rangpur and Sylhet that started operations very recently.
With the maximum focus of tests in the capital, 39 out of 54 confirmed cases yesterday are from Dhaka, one from an upazila of Dhaka district and the rest from other divisions.
Since the first reported case a month ago, a total of 20 people lost their lives to the virus.
A total of 33 male and 21 female patients have been tested positive in the last 24 hours.
Five are aged between 12 to 20, 15 are aged between 21 to 30, 10 are aged between 31 to 40, seven are aged between 41 to 50, seven are aged between 51 to 60, and 10 are above 60.
Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) Additional Director Sania Tahmina said 563 samples were collected from Dhaka and 425 samples were collected from the rest of the divisions in the last 24-hour cycle.
Cox’s Bazar locks down
The local administration of Cox’s Bazaar has locked down the district to combat the spread of coronavirus.
Cox’s Bazar Deputy Commissioner (DC) Md Kamal Hossain announced the decision last afternoon.
“No one will be able to get out or enter the district until further notice,” said DC Kamal.
He warned of stern legal actions if anyone violates this order.
The lockdown is also effective in 34 Rohingya camps of the district.
People demand aid in Narayanganj
Poor people took to streets in Narayanganj, defying government directives of maintaining social distancing, demanding relief aid.
They brought out a procession in the district’s Kashipur union on Wednesday demanding aid as the government has again extended the ongoing shutdown to fight coronavirus.
The city has been put out under lockdown since Tuesday night.
PPEs, kits and treatment
A total of 6,91,292 personal protective equipment (PPE) has been collected so far, and 4,70,774 have been distributed.
“The whole world is dealing with a shortage of PPEs. We are trying to collect PPEs everyday. The figure seems huge but we need more PPEs,” DGHS Additional Director Sania Tahmina said.
So far, 21,000 testing kits have been distributed in different testing facilities and 71,000 are in stock.
In the last 24 hours, 737 people have been home quarantined and 139 are in institutional quarantine.
Sixteen people have been taken into isolation units in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of isolated people to 111.
The DGHS additional director said 1,550 isolation beds are ready in Dhaka and 6,143 more are ready in different districts outside Dhaka.
‘Need for more ICUs’
A total of 112 fully-fledged intensive care units are ready, she said.
“Although we think we need to increase the number of ICUs,” she said.
According to the official, Dhaka’s hospitals have 67 ICU beds ready to treat coronavirus patients and the rest of the country has a total 105 ICUs prepared.
Experts in the country think that of the total infected patients, 10-14% needs ICU and ventilator support during treatment.
She said 314 people have entered the country via land and sea and all of them went through screening.
The fast spreading coronavirus has claimed over 83,664 lives and infected more than 1,455,519 people globally, according to Worldometers.
As many as 309,818 people have recovered from coronavirus infection which has spread to 209 countries and territories, and two international conveyances across the globe.
Additional reporting by Abdul Aziz, Cox’s Bazar and Shamima Rita, Narayanganj
