The rates of hospitalisation and death caused by Covid-19 might see a rise in the next four or five days, said Health Minister Zahid Maleque on Wednesday.

“There were around 250 Covid patients in hospitals on average a week ago and now it’s around 1000. The hospitalisation will rise further, and also deaths. Health workers brace for troubles,” the minister told a programme at BCPS auditorium in the capital.

The Covid-19 infection rate was 9 per cent yesterday which rose to 11 per cent today, he said, adding that the number of new patients was 200-250 barely 10-15 days ago but now it is around 3,000.

READ: Covid surge in Bangladesh: Daily positivity rate jumps to 6.78%

As the virus is spreading at an alarming rate, instructions have been given to keep 20,000 additional hospital beds ready as a preparation, said Zahid Maleque. 

“We want the Covid situation not to worsen in Bangladesh as in Europe and the USA. So, the government will enforce an 11-point restriction from tomorrow,” he said.

Bangladesh reported 2,916 more cases of infections and another four deaths in 24 hours till Wednesday morning with a continuous rise in Covid-19 cases.

With the fresh cases reported after testing 24,705 samples, the daily positivity rate kept increasing to 11.68 per cent from Tuesday’s 8.97 per cent during the 24-hour period, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

The country last logged 3,167 cases on September 3, last year along with 70 deaths in 24 hours while the positivity rate was 10.76 per cent.

The fresh numbers took the country’s total fatalities to 28,111 while the caseload mounted to 16, 01,305 on Wednesday.

Among the new deceased, two were men and two women while three of the deaths were reported from Dhaka division and another from Chattogram.

The mortality rate remained unchanged at 1.76 per cent during the period.

READ: Covid surge in Bangladesh: 5,000 get infected in just one week

The recovery rate increased to 97.90 per cent with the recovery of 266 more patients during the 24-hour period.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh’s total tally of Omicron cases reached 30 with detection of nine more cases on Monday, according to GISAID, a global initiative on sharing all influenza data.