Bangladesh registered another 4,417 Covid cases in the 24 hours until Friday morning as 18,906 samples, including the impending ones, were tested in 257 authorized labs across the country.
With the latest infections, the overall tally now stands at 711,779.
Some 18,707 samples were collected in the 24 hours. But official data shows the number of samples tested gradually dropped below the 19,000 mark, down from around 34,000 samples in a span of just five days.
However, the test positivity rate remains upward despite the fall in samples tested. The latest figures show an infection rate of 23.36% against the overall figure of 13.86% since the pandemic broke out in the country in March last year.
According to the Directorate General of Health Services, the rate was 20.49% on April 10; 19.81% on April 11; 20.59% on April 12; 18.29% on April 13; 20.89% on April 14 and 21% on April 15.
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This means the latest infection rate is the highest in a week, and that too, on a day when the country saw a record 101 fatalities from Covid-19.
After the country detected the first three Covid-19 cases on March 8 last year, the infection rate started to rise sharply in two months. The figure continued to be over the 20% level until late August, before plummeting significantly at the end of last year.
The downward trend was in place almost throughout last winter. The rate was below 5% for two months but it again started to intensify from the second week of March this year.
It has taken a serious turn, and since late last month, causing the daily caseloads to break the previous records almost every day.
If the infection rate remains below the 5% mark for two consecutive weeks, it is considered that the Covid situation is well controlled in a country, the World Health Organisation says.
