The infection and death rates from Covid-19 are as high as ever right now in Bangladesh, and there can be no denying that dealing with this emergency must now be priority number one.
Lockdown can help with containment of the virus and slowing down its spread, but as for the people who are already sick, the need of the hour is full and proper medical care. Unfortunately, there has been a crisis of medical care due to the extremely high demand. A shortage of ICU beds has caused many patients to turn back, and the daily death rate, which recently exceed triple digits, shows no signs of abating.
It is certainly a ray of hope thus that a new 1,000-bed dedicated Covid-19 hospital has been inaugurated at the DNCC market in Mohakhali at long last, and this could be an effective way to reduce the death rate by finally providing hospital beds to those in critical need, while easing the pressure on the country’s health care system by increasing capacity.
According to Health Minister Zahid Maleque, the hospital is scheduled to be fully operational by the end of the month, with a quarter of the beds initially being available. Let us hope the project stays on schedule, because Covid-19 is literally a matter of life and death, and there is no time to waste. Just in the past one and a half months, a staggering 160,000 people tested positive for Covid-19. The death toll has increased five-fold. There can be no doubt, then, that ramping up medical care is now needed more than anything else.
