Bangladesh recorded more than 7,000 new Coronavirus cases for the second consecutive day on Monday as the country is struggling with the rising number of Covid infections during its second wave.

Health authorities recorded 7,075 fresh Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours until Monday morning while it registered 7087 cases a day earlier which was the highest number of infections in a single day since the start of the pandemic.

With 52 new deaths during the period, the coronavirus fatalities rose to 9,318. The mortality rate remained static at 1.45 percent.

Amid the worsening Covid situation, the government enforced a 7-day lockdown from Monday restricting people’s movement, shutting shops, markets and suspending operations of public transport (bus, train and domestic flights). 

Also read:Second dose of Covid vaccine from Thursday: PM

Coronavirus claimed 568 lives in January this year, 281 in February and 638 in March.

Earlier, the health authorities recorded over 5,000 Covid cases on March 29, 30 and 31 and April 3 while over 6,000 cases on April 1 and 2.

The infection rate rose to 23.40 percent from 23.07 percent on Sunday.

Bangladesh has so far recorded 644,439 coronavirus cases, according to a handout issued by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

The number of daily cases and infection rate dropped below 5 percent earlier this year but then infections continued to rise again amid people’s reluctance to maintain health safety rules.

Hospitals are struggling to provide treatment to the increasing number of coronavirus patients with their limited resources. The government is increasing the number of beds and Covid-designated hospitals to deal with the situation.

During the 24-hour period until Monday morning, 2,932 patients recovered, taking the number of recoveries to 555,414.

Bangladesh reported its first cases on March 8 last year and confirmed the first death from the virus 10 days later.

Also read:Covid-19: Bangladesh records 6,000+ cases for 2nd straight day

The country has so far tested 4,813,624 samples, including 30,239 in the last 24 hours, the DGHS said.

 

Among the latest victims, 40 died in Dhaka division, 7 in Chattogram, One each in Rajshahi, Khulna, Barishal, Sylhet and Rangpur.

So far, 5,344 coronavirus patients died in Dhaka division, 1,680 in Chattogram, 510 in Rajshahi, 593 in Khulna, 277 in Barishal, 328 in Sylhet, 381 in Rangpur and 206 in Mymensingh divisions.

So far, 7004 men (75.17) and 2,314 women (24.83) died of Covid-19.

Nationwide lockdown in place

In an effort to prevent the transmission of Coronavirus and improve the current situation, the government issued a gazette imposing restrictions on the movement of people and other activities for seven days from Monday.

According to the gazette, all modes of public transport (road, river, rail and domestic flights) will remain suspended during the period.

Emergency services, carrying of goods, production, overseas passengers and returnees will remain out of the purview of the restriction.

The offices, staffers and vehicles of the organisations providing emergency services including law enforcement, relief distribution, health services, power, water, gas, fire services, port activities, telephone, and postal services will remain out of the purview of the restriction.

Also read:Global Covid cases hit 130.6 million

All government offices, non-government, autonomous, private offices and courts will be allowed to operate with a limited number of employees with their own transports to perform emergency duties.

Industries and factories will remain open and the ongoing construction works will continue.

Vaccination drive

The government launched a countrywide vaccination campaign on February 7 with doses received from the Serum Institute of India.

Bangladesh inked an agreement with Serum in December last year for 30 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. Serum is supposed to supply the doses between January and June this year – 5 million each month.

Global situation

The global Covid-19 cases surpassed 131 million on Monday despite the rapid vaccination campaign across the world, according to the data compiled by Johns Hopkins University (JHU).

The JHU data shows that the global case count reached 131,203,647 as of Monday morning while the death toll from the virus mounted to 2,852,196.