Chattogram’s district administration has imposed a ban on holding rallies and mass gatherings, including religious programmes, to contain the transmission of coronavirus.

The government has not yet taken any decision to enforce lockdown again in the country for curbing the transmission of Coronavirus, Health Minister Zahid Maleque said on Thursday.

A US public health expert has suggested that reopening of schools in Bangladesh could be considered during Covid-19 ‘as school closures have clear negative impacts on child health, education and development’.

Amid the growing worry over a possible deterioration in Covid-19 situation during the winter, the coronavirus infection rate has marked a rise over the last one week as the temperature dropped a bit.

Wari under the Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) was put under strict lockdown for 21 days from Saturday morning as the area was identified as a ‘Red Zone’ due to high Covid-19 infection rate.

Although the government has relaxed the shutdown, enforced to curb the transmission of coronavirus, from May 31, still uncertainty looms large over resuming the field level works in the power transmission projects across the country  due to upcoming monsoon .    “Now most of the ongoing projects will be delayed by at least a year as monsoon will start from July and field level works are not possible before the next winter”, said a top official of the Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB).          Field-level work on 25 ongoing power transmission projects remained suspended since the coronavirus outbreak in China in December last year, hitting hard the power sector development.   According to official sources, most of these projects were either awarded to Chinese contractors or their equipment were supposed to come largely from China.    “Neither the Chinese workers, nor the equipment are coming from China since the pandemic started in Wuhan,” said Golam Kibria, managing director of PGCB.    He said many Chinese companies are working as subcontractors as well in Bangladesh’s power transmission sector.    The top PGCB official said although coronavirus situation in China has improved, Chinese officials and workers, especially the technicians, are not coming back as the virus situation in Bangladesh is worsening.    “Finding no way, we had to suspend the field-level works on the transmission projects,” he added.     

A total of 654 people are currently under home-quarantine in the district to prevent the transmission of coronavirus.

The Islamic Foundation on Monday issued some guidelines over various issues, including offering namaz and maintaining people’s safety at mosques, and the funeral of coronavirus patients.

Operation of all domestic flights will remain suspended from Tuesday midnight until further notice.

Another 116 expatriates who returned from abroad were sent to home-quarantine on Sunday to prevent the transmission of coronavirus or COVID- 19.