Bangladesh is seeing a steep rise in Covid-19 cases as 2,231 more infections along with three more deaths were reported in 24 hours till Monday morning.

With the fresh cases reported after testing 26,143 samples, the daily positivity rate jumped again to 8.53 per cent from Sunday’s 6.78 per cent during the period, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

The country last logged 2,325 cases on September 10, last year along with 38 deaths in 24 hours.

Bangladesh is currently seeing a surge of Covid-19 cases as health authorities logged 10,392 infections in the last 10 days since January 1.

Also read: Covid cases in Bangladesh mark a sharp rise by 115% in one week: DGHS

The fresh numbers took the country’s total fatalities to 28,105 while the caseload mounted to 15, 95, 931.

Of the 25 deaths recorded from January 3 to January 9, some 16 per cent received Covid vaccines while 84 percent did not, the DGHS mentioned.

Comorbidities among the deceased patients declined 2.8 per cent this week compared to the previous one. Comorbidity means the simultaneous presence of two or more diseases or medical conditions in a patient.

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

The recovery rate further declined to 97.19 per cent with the recovery of 208 more patients during the 24-hour period.

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

On December 9 last year, Bangladesh again logged zero Covid-related death after nearly three weeks as the pandemic was apparently showing signs of easing.

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

The country reported this year’s first zero Covid-related death in a single day on November 20 last year along with 178 infections since the pandemic broke out in Bangladesh in March 2020.

Bangladesh logged the highest number of daily fatalities of 264 on August 10 last year, while the highest daily caseload was 16,230 on July 28 last year.

On Sunday, DGHS said, the positive cases of Coronavirus have increased by 115 per cent in Bangladesh over the last one week compared to the previous week

“As many as 6,300 new Covid cases have been reported in one week which is 3,376 more than the previous week,” said DGHS Director Prof Nazmul Islam in the regular DGHS briefing on Sunday.

During the period, he said, 23 Covid patients have died, which is 15 per cent higher than the previous week.

Nazmul Islam said the overall positivity rate in the last two months was below 2 per cent. But the positivity rate has been increasing gradually over the last one week.

Meanwhile, the Omicron-infected patients are doing well as no one of them has any complication and many of them returned home after recovery, according to the DGHS.

“So, there’s nothing to fear about Omicron,” said Prof Nazmul.

Prof Nazmul said the Omicron variant has increased the number of patients in different countries. As a result, the pressure of patients is also increasing in the hospitals.

“The number of patients is also increasing in the country, but we all can contain it, hopefully.”

Emphasising the importance of raising public awareness, the DGHS Director said anyone infected by Covid-19, not only by Omicron, can seek timely medical assistance. “If you undergo treatment without hiding the information, it would be easy to fight it off.”