Bangladesh, currently passing through the most frightful stage of Covid-19 second wave, reported another record-high 164 deaths in 24 hours until Monday morning.

During the period, Bangladesh also broke its all-time record of cases with 9,964 fresh infections, according to a handout provided by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

This was reported just after seeing the highest 153 deaths on Sunday and highest 8,822 cases back on June 30.

Also read: Covid-19: Countries racing to vaccinate before Delta takes hold

The new cases were detected after testing 34,002 samples, said the DGHS.

This puts the country's case positivity rate at peak 29.30 %.

Bangladesh last recorded the highest single-day positivity rate of 28.99% on Sunday.

The new numbers took the country’s death toll to 15,229 while the caseload to 954,881.

However, the fatality rate remained unchanged during the period at 1.59%.

So far, 839,082 people have recovered from the disease putting the recovery rate at 87.87%, which is declining unlike other indicators.

Khulna division logged the highest 55 deaths today when Dhaka saw 40 Covid deaths. Besides, 18 people died in Chattogram, 16 each in Rajshahi and Rangpur, nine in Barishal, eight in Sylhet and two in Mymensingh divisions.

Also read: Covid getting deadlier in Bangladesh; record-high 153 die in 24 hours

Of the deceased, 148 died in different government and non-government hospitals, 15 at homes and one on the way to hospital, according to the DGHS.

The country saw 2,404 Covid deaths in April, 1,169 in May and 1,884 in June, marking those the most fatal months of this year.

Also, July was the most fatal month of 2020, reporting 1,264 deaths followed by 1,197 deaths in June that year.

Vaccination drive update

The government has so far approved the emergency use of Oxford-AstraZeneca, Sinopharm (China), Sputnik-V (Russia), Pfizer-BioNTech (USA/Germany) and Crona Vac (China) and Janssen single-dose vaccines.

Mass registration process for Covid-19 vaccination is currently suspended in Bangladesh only with an exemption to front line law enforcement forces, medical students and residential students of universities.

Bangladesh is currently administering the doses of Sinopharm vaccine and Pfizer BioNTech vaccine and also the second dose of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.

As of now, 87,201 people received the first dose of China’s Sinopharm vaccine, and 2,237 have received the second dose of it.

Meanwhile, 3,888 people have received the first jab of Pfizer vaccine, including 1,146 in the past 24 hours.

Of the Astrazeneca vaccine doses, 4,292,600 received the second shot and 5,820,015 the first one so far. 

Lockdown and arrests in Dhaka

The complete lockdown in Bangladesh came into effect on Thursday morning to mitigate the spread of Coronavirus, which will continue till July 7 midnight.

Army personnel are patrolling the streets of Dhaka and elsewhere in the country in aid of the civil administration as the government scrambles to bring the Covid-19 situation under control.  Police have set up barricades and check-posts at all important points to monitor the movement of vehicles as well as people.

On the fifth day of the 7-day strict lockdown authorities on Monday arrested 413 people and fined 326 vehicles for violating the lockdown rules in the capital.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) arrested 413 people roaming on the streets across the capital, said DMP Additional DC (media) Iftekharul Islam.

Meanwhile, mobile courts collected Tk 98,450 in fines from 243 people who violated the restrictions.

During this time, the Traffic Division collected an amount of Tk 12,23,300 in penalties from the rules-breaking vehicles in different areas of the capital.