Despite a month-long general holiday aimed at easing social distancing to limit the spread of coronavirus, Bangladesh has experienced a mammoth 128-fold surge in Covid-19 cases over the period.
The surge was recorded with the country confirming another 309 people testing positive for the deadly disease in the 24 hours until Saturday afternoon.
The tally of Covid-19 patients now stands at 4,998.
Nine more Covid-19 patients died during the same time frame, taking the country's Covid-19 death toll to 140.
Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) Additional Director General (Administration) Prof Nasima Sultana revealed the new figures at the daily online briefing in Dhaka on Saturday afternoon.
No new recovery was reported in the last 24 hours, meaning that the number of patients recovering from the infection remains static at 112.
The DGHS official said as many as 3,422 samples were collected in the last 24 hours and of those 3,337 had been tested.
There were five women among the nine deceased. Of the dead, three were from Dhaka, two from Narayanganj, and four others from Joypurhat, Mymensingh, Tangail and Madaripur.
Among the dead, seven were aged above 70 years, while one was a sexagenrian and one was in the 50s, she further informed.
At the briefing, Nasima said coronavirus had affected 60 districts in the country and only four districts—Rangamati, Khagrachhari, Jhenaidah, and Satkhira—were free from the virus infection.
On April 20, the death toll from coronavirus infection crossed the 100 mark in Bangladesh.
On April 17, the country recorded the highest deaths, with 15 fatalities from the pandemic, since the country declared its first Covid-19 death on March 18.
Bangladesh reported its first three Covid-19 cases on March 8.
The massive rise in coronavirus patients has resulted from the government’s measures to boost sample testing for suspected Covid-19 patients amid growing criticism from different quarters early this month.
Steady rise since April 4, alarming from April 14
On March 25, when there were only 39 reported cases of Covid-19 with five deaths, Bangladesh declared a 10-day shutdown effective from the next day till April 4 to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus.
The shutdown was primarily extended till April 14, then in two phases to April 14 and 25, with the latest directive extending it till May 5 as the number of new cases began to escalate, especially since April 4 (a total of 70 cases and 8 deaths till then).
After the first official announcement of three people contracting the virus on March 8, it took Bangladesh 38 days to cross the first 1,000 mark of reported cases. The number doubled and crossed the 2,000 mark just four days after that, on April 18.
The harrowing 3000 milestone came even faster—just three days later—on April 21, while the fourth tally of 1,000 cases was recorded on April 23, with the 5,000-case figure just around the corner.
However, it should also be noted that the significant increase in the number of tests since April has contributed to the rise of reported positive cases.
Despite the continued shutdown, the Covid-19 situation in Bangladesh appears to be highly threatening compared to many other badly-affected countries and even neighbouring India.
According to the Times of India, when India went into a total lockdown on March 24, it just had 500 confirmed Covid-19 cases with average daily growth of 21.6% until then.
The rate significantly dropped to 8.1% in a month, the newspaper reported on Saturday.
But a growth rate of 8.1% three days into the fifth week of the lockdown is still higher than what the worst-hit countries achieved after locking down for the same period, the report said.
While Germany brought down the growth rate to 2%, the US was at 4.8%, it added.
Rumi Kawser Talukder contributed to this report.
