The death toll from Covid-19 has surpassed 17,000 in Bangladesh amid the government’s decision to relax the nationwide strict lockdown for nine days ahead of Eid-ul-Azha.
The health authorities reported 210 new deaths in the 24 hours to 8am on Wednesday, taking the toll so far to 17,052.
The country again saw the death toll rise by 1,000 in only five days after surpassing 16,000 fatalities on July 9 and 15,000 on July 4.
Dhaka division reported 69 deaths, the highest among the eight divisions, followed by Khulna with 46 deaths.
Chittagong division counted 39 deaths while Rajshahi had 15, Rangpur 14, Barisal 10, Sylhet nine, and Mymensingh eight.
Meanwhile, another 12,383 people tested positive over the same period, taking the tally to 1,059,538, according to latest figures revealed by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
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Dhaka logged 5,058 cases, the highest among the divisions, followed by Chittagong with 2,470 cases, Khulna with 1,621 and Rajshahi with 1,196.
As many as 42,490 samples were tested across the country, with a positivity rate of 29.14%. The overall test positivity rate stands at 14.92%.
On the other hand, another 8,245 patients recovered from the infectious disease across the country, taking the total number of recoveries to 897,412.
Of the 210 deceased – 131 men and 79 women – 107 were aged above 60 years, 52 were aged between 51 and 60, 29 aged between 41 and 50, 14 aged between 31 and 40, seven in the 21-30 age group, and one belonging to the 11-20 age group.
The pandemic has so far claimed the lives of 11,913 men (69.86%) and 5,130 women (30.14%).
The mortality rate against the total number of cases detected so far stands at 1.61%.
Vaccination
On Wednesday, 293 people received a second dose of the Oxford-Astrazeneca vaccine, taking the total to nearly 4.295 million. Meanwhile, a little over 1.525 million people received the first dose of the vaccine and are awaiting the second dose.
Additionally, 104,763 people received the first dose of the Sinopharm vaccine during the same period, taking the total to 373,016 till now, while 2,259 people received the second dose till Sunday.
Meanwhile, 6,714 people were administered the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine, taking the total to 36,566.
On the other hand, 26,690 people received the first dose of the Moderna vaccine in the 24 hours to Wednesday morning.
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The health authorities in Bangladesh reported the first three cases of Covid-19, a severe acute respiratory illness caused by a strain of coronavirus named Sars-CoV-2, on March 8, 2020.
Since November last year, five variants of the virus have been detected in Bangladesh, the Indian variant (B.1.617.2) being the latest. It was later renamed as the Delta variant.
The rest of the variants identified in the country are the UK (B.1.1.7), South Africa (B.1.351), Nigeria (B.1.525) and Brazilian (P1) variants of the coronavirus.
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The coronavirus disease broke out in China's Wuhan city in late December 2019 and quickly spread throughout the world, becoming a pandemic in less than three months.
The fast spreading coronavirus has claimed more than 4.067 million lives and infected more than 188.69 million people across the world till Wednesday afternoon, according to Worldometer.
As many as 172.495 million people have recovered from Covid-19, which has spread to 220 countries and territories across the planet.
