Bangladesh recorded the highest ever Covid-19 infection rate of 33.37% on Friday with 20 new deaths amid a spike in Omicron cases.
The country last recorded the highest infection rate – 32.55% – on July 24 last year.
On Thursday, the health authorities reported 15,807 new cases, with a test positivity rate of 31.98%. It was 31.64% the day before.
Bangladesh registered the highest daily caseload of 16,230 on July 28 last year.
Even though the fatalities are still quite low compared to last year, Omicron cases are increasing sharply across the country.
Health experts have said not adhering to guidelines can be catastrophic has Bangladesh has already confirmed 69 cases of the South African variant.
Meanwhile, in the 24 hours till Friday morning, Bangladesh registered 15,440 fresh cases after testing 46,268 cases, according to the latest bulletin of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
The latest figures have taken the total deaths to 28,308 and the total number of cases to 1,762,771.
At the same time, some 1,326 people recovered from the disease, taking the total recovery to 1,562,369.
Five deaths were reported in Dhaka division while nine in Chattogram, two each in Rajshahi and Sylhet and one each in Barishal and Mymensingh divisions.
Meanwhile, the mortality rate further declined to 1.61%.
On December 11 this year, Bangladesh reported its first two cases of the Omicron variant in two members of the Bangladesh women cricket team.
They had returned from Zimbabwe after taking part in the ICC Women's World Cup qualifiers. The event was, however, called off midway due to the surge of Omicron.
Doctors in South Africa, the continent's most developed country, were the first to alert the world of this new variant.
