COVID-19 deaths
Covid claims 51 more lives in Bangladesh, case positivity rate falls to 5.98 per cent
The infection positivity rate dropped below six per cent as Bangladesh logged 51 more Covid-related deaths and 1,862 fresh cases in 24 hours until Thursday morning
The daily case positivity rate declined to 5.98 per cent on Thursday, a slight fall from Wednesday’s 6.54 per cent, said the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
However, today’s fatalities were higher than the 35 deaths reported on Tuesday, the lowest in around three months.
Also read: Covid in Bangladesh: Daily deaths rise again as 51 more die
The new numbers pushed the country’s Covid death tally to 27,109 while the caseload climbed to 15,38,203.
Covid-19: Infection rate rises to 23.84 % in Faridpur ; 3 more die
Three more Covid patients died at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical College (BSMMC) Hospital in district in 24 hrs until Monday morning, health officials said.
Among the deceased, two died of Covid and remaining one died after showing symptoms.
With the latest figures, the number of fatalities in the district rose to 516.
Read: Covid-19: Bangladesh logs 51 more deaths, 1871 cases in past 24 hours
Meanwhile, 61 more people were found positive for Covid-19 after testing 260 samples in the last 24 hrs.
The positivity rate now stands at 23.84% which was below 20% for a week, according to the district civil surgeon’s office.
BSMMC Director Md Saifur Rahman said 10 more Covid patients got admitted to the hospital during the period.
Currently, 59 patients are undergoing treatment at the hospital and among them 11 are in the ICU.
Read: No room to defy Covid norms at schools, colleges: Dipu Moni
Health officials said this situation may worsen further if the health safety measures are not followed properly.
Bangladesh logged 51 more Covid-19 deaths and 1,871 cases in 24 hours till Sunday morning, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
The daily case positivity rate increased a bit to 7.46% from 7.03 % on Saturday .
Rajshahi hospital sees 18 more Covid deaths in 24 hrs
Eighteen more Covid patients have died at Rajshahi Medical College and Hospital (RMCH) in the past 24 hours, health officials said on Wednesday.
Director Brigadier General Shamim Yazdani said that of the deceased, six had tested positive for Covid while 12 others showed symptoms of the virus.
Read: 15 more people die of Covid at RMCH
Six of them were from Rajshahi district, three from Natore, seven from Pabna, and one each from Kushtia and Meherpur districts.
Some 523 people died of Covid-19 at the corona unit of RMCH from July 1 to 28.Besides, 405 people died at the hospital in the month of June.
Meanwhile, 50 more new patients have been admitted to the hospital with Covid symptoms in the past 24 hours, according to the officials.
Read: RMCH Corona unit scrambles as it reports 19 more deaths
Currently, 403 patients are undergoing treatment at the 513-bed hospital. Of them, 20 people have been undergoing treatment at the ICU unit of the hospital, they said.
A total of 127 people have tested positive for Covid-19 in the past 24 hours. The positivity rate now stands at 22.75%.
Global Covid cases top 187 million
The global corona caseload has now surged past 187 million, as the second wave of the Covid pandemic continues its onslaught across the world even with mass inoculations underway.
The total caseload and fatalities from the virus stand at 187,230,005 and 4,038,806, respectively, as of Tuesday morning, according to Johns Hopkins University (JHU).
So far, 3,461,554,109 Covid vaccine doses have been administered across the globe, as per the university data.
The US has logged 33,886,515 cases and 607,390 deaths to date, according to the university data. The death toll in the United States is the highest in the world.
Read: FDA adds warning about rare reaction to J&J COVID-19 vaccine
Brazil registered 595 more Covid-19 deaths in the past 24 hours, raising its national death toll to 533,488, the health ministry said Monday.
As many as 20,937 new cases were detected during the period, taking the total caseload to 19,089,940, the ministry said.
The pandemic continues to spread in Asia-Pacific countries, with India reporting some 37,154 new cases on Monday. Japanese capital Tokyo, on the other hand, entered its fourth Covid-19 state of emergency.
India's Covid tally rose to 30,874,376 as 37,154 new cases were registered in 24 hours across the country, according to the federal health ministry's data.
Besides, 724 more deaths have been recorded since Sunday morning, taking the death toll to 408,764.
Situation in Bangladesh
An appalling record number of 13,768 Covid cases were reported in Bangladesh while 220 people lost the battle to the deadly virus in 24 hours till Monday morning.
The new numbers took the country’s caseload to 1,034,957 while the death toll rose to 16,639, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
Read: Chattogram hospital to admit only Covid patients
Just a day before, on Sunday, the country saw a record-high 11,856 cases and 230 deaths.
The country has been seeing an average of 201 deaths daily for the last seven days. A total of 2,136 people lost their battle to Covid-19 in the month of July so far.
The fresh cases were detected after testing 44,067 samples, which takes the country’s daily case positivity rate to 31.24% from Sunday’s 29.67%, said the DGHS.
The fatality rate remained unchanged at 1.61% during the period.
The country saw 2,404 Covid deaths in April, 1,169 in May and 1,884 in June, making those the most fatal months of this year. Also, July was the most fatal month in 2020, reporting 1,264 deaths followed by 1,197 deaths in June that year.
So far, 881,521 people have recovered from Covid, taking the country’s recovery rate to 85.17%, which is on the decline compared to other indicators.
Of those who died in 24 hours till Monday morning, 121 were aged over 60 years, 46 between the ages of 51 and 60, 26 between 41 and 50 years, 17 between 31 and 40 years, nine between 21 and 30 years and one was a teenager.
Dhaka division, the worst hit region so far, reported 64 of the deaths, while Khulna saw 55 deaths and Chattogram 37. Besides, 23 people died in Rajshahi, 18 in Rangpur, 13 in Mymensingh, six in Sylhet and four in Barishal divisions.
Vaccination drive
The government has so far approved the emergency use of Oxford-AstraZeneca, Sinopharm (China), Sputnik-V (Russia), Pfizer-BioNTech (USA/Germany), Crona Vac (China) and Janssen single-dose vaccines.
Amid the deteriorating coronavirus situation, the government resumed the countrywide mass registration on July 8 for receiving Covid-19 jabs, which was suspended for around three months as vaccine procurement became unsure.
Read: Tackling Covid spread is not Health Ministry’s job: Minister
Bangladesh is currently administering the Sinopharm, Pfizer BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines.
As of now, 268,253 people have received the first dose of China’s Sinopharm vaccine, and 2,259 the second dose of it.
Meanwhile, 29,852 people have received the first jabs of the Pfizer vaccine to date.
Of the Astrazeneca vaccine doses administered so far, some 4,295,568 have received the second shot and 5,820,033 the first one.
Khulna Division records 51 more single-day Covid deaths
Amid the worsening Covid-19 situation in Khulna region, health authorities recorded 51 more deaths in the division in 24 hours until Thursday morning.
During the period, 1,732 people were infected with the deadly virus.
Read: Covid claims 17 more lives in Khulna
Of the deceased, 21 people died in Khulna district, 10 in Kushtia, six in Jashore, four in Narail, three each in Chuadanga, Jhenaidah, Narail and Magura and one each in Bagerhat and Meherpur districts, said Dr Rasheda Sultana, director (Health).
In the Khulna division, the first case of Covid-19 was detected in Chuadanga on March 19, 2020.
Read: 22 more people die of Covid in Khulna
An analysis of the district-wise covid data of the divisional health department shows that Khulna recorded the highest number of 338 infection cases in the last 24 hours. So far, 17,898 people have been infected with covid-19 and 369 people died in the district. Besides, 12,172 recovered from the disease.
Overall, 67,531 people have been infected with the virus in 10 districts of the division and the death toll from the virus reached 1,416.
Read: At 1,865, Khulna records highest single-day Covid cases
Some 44,184 people have recovered to date in the Khulna division.
As global COVID-19 deaths top 4 million, a suicide in Peru
On the last day of Javier Vilca’s life, his wife stood outside a hospital window with a teddy bear, red balloons and a box of chocolates to celebrate his birthday, and held up a giant, hand-scrawled sign that read: “Don’t give up. You’re the best man in the world.”
Minutes later, Vilca, a 43-year-old struggling radio journalist who had battled depression, jumped four stories to his death — the fifth suicide by a COVID-19 patient at Peru’s overwhelmed Honorio Delgado hospital since the pandemic began.
Vilca became yet another symbol of the despair caused by the coronavirus and the stark and seemingly growing inequities exposed by COVID-19 on its way to a worldwide death toll of 4 million, a milestone recorded Wednesday by Johns Hopkins University.
At the hospital where Vilca died on June 24, a single doctor and three nurses were frantically rushing to treat 80 patients in an overcrowded, makeshift ward while Vilca gasped for breath because of an acute shortage of bottled oxygen.
“He promised me he would make it,” said Nohemí Huanacchire, weeping over her husband’s casket in their half-built home with no electricity on the outskirts of Arequipa, Peru’s second-largest city. “But I never saw him again.”
Read:13 die in Peru disco stampede during police raid amid coronavirus lockdown
The number of lives lost around the world over the past year and a half is about equal to the population of Los Angeles or the nation of Georgia. It is three times the number of victims killed in traffic accidents around the globe per year. By some estimates, it is roughly the number of people killed in battle in all of the world’s wars since 1982.
Even then, the toll is widely believed to be an undercount because of overlooked cases or deliberate concealment.
More than six months after vaccines became available, reported COVID-19 deaths worldwide have dropped to around 7,900 a day, after topping out at over 18,000 a day in January. The World Health Organization recorded just under 54,000 deaths last week, the lowest weekly total since last October.
While vaccination campaigns in the U.S. and parts of Europe are ushering in a period of post-lockdown euphoria, and children there are being inoculated so that they can go back to summer camp and school, infection rates are still stubbornly high in many parts of South America and Southeast Asia. And multitudes in Africa remain unprotected because of severe vaccine shortages.
Also, the highly contagious delta variant is spreading rapidly, setting off alarms, driving up case counts in places and turning the crisis increasingly into a race between the vaccine and the mutant version.
The variant has been detected in at least 96 countries. Australia, Israel, Malaysia, Hong Kong and other places have reimposed restrictions to try to suppress it.
The variants, uneven access to vaccines and the relaxation of precautions in some wealthier countries are “a toxic combination that is very dangerous,” warned Ann Lindstrand, a top immunization official at WHO.
Instead of treating the crisis as a “me-and-myself-and-my-country” problem, she said, “we need to get serious that this is a worldwide problem that needs worldwide solutions.”
While the U.S. missed President Joe Biden’s goal of getting at least one shot into 70% of American adults by the Fourth of July, deaths nationwide are down sharply to around 200 per day, from a peak of over 3,400 per day in January.
And the U.S. economy has been roaring back, with growth this year forecast to be the fastest in almost seven decades. Even cruise ships, an early vector for the virus’s spread, are resuming voyages after a hiatus of more than a year.
In Britain, despite persistent fears about the delta variant, Prime Minister Boris Johnson plans to lift all remaining restrictions this month. Britain this week recorded a one-day total of more than 30,000 new infections for the first time since January.
Read: Citing pandemic, judge agrees to free ex-Peru leader on bail
Elsewhere in Europe, tens of thousands of soccer fans in several cities were able to watch in person their national teams compete in the European Championship a year after the tournament was postponed, though attendance in some stadiums was severely restricted.
In parts of the developing world, it is a story of desperation.
In Latin America, just 1 in 10 people have been fully vaccinated, contributing to a rise in cases in countries such as Colombia, Brazil, Bolivia and Uruguay. Meanwhile, the virus is penetrating remote areas of Africa that were previously spared, contributing to a sharp rise in cases.
Peru has been one of the hardest hit by the virus, with the highest mortality of any country in the world as a percentage of its population.
In Arequipa, Vilca’s suicide was splashed across the front pages of the tabloids in the city of 1 million. His widow said his death was a protest against the deteriorating conditions faced by COVID-19 patients.
Nationwide, Peru has just 2,678 intensive care beds for a population of 32 million — a trifling number even by the low standards of Latin America. Nor was Vilca among the lucky 14% of Peruvians who have received a single dose of the vaccine.
Across the country, a new routine has emerged as people spend their days scrambling to fill heavy, green oxygen tanks bought on the black market that are a lifeline for sick loved ones. Some businesses have tripled the price for oxygen, forcing many people to plunder their savings or sell belongings.
From the hospital where Vilca took his life, “he’d call and say they were all abandoned. Nobody was paying attention,” his widow said, showing on her cellphone a photo her husband sent of himself in one of the rare moments he was lucky enough to have an oxygen mask.
Along with South America, which accounts for around 40% of the daily deaths from COVID-19, India has emerged as the other main driver of mortality. Even then, experts believe the roughly 1,000 deaths recorded daily in India are almost certainly an undercount.
In the state of Madhya Pradesh, with over 73 million people, one journalist found that that the spike in registered deaths from all causes in May alone was five times pre-pandemic levels and 67 times the official death toll from the virus for the month, which was 2,451.
Rich countries including Britain, the U.S. and France have promised to donate about 1 billion COVID-19 shots to help close the inequality gap. But experts say 11 billion are needed to immunize the world. Of the 3 billion doses that have been administered globally, less than 2% have been in the developing world.
Read:Eight Barcelona de Guayaquil fans die in bus crash in Peru
“Pledging to provide 1 billion doses is a drop in the ocean,” said Agnes Callemard, Amnesty International’s secretary-general. She slammed politicians for opting for “more of the same paltry half-measures and insufficient gestures.”
The U.N.-backed effort to distribute vaccines to poor countries, known as COVAX, has also faltered badly. Its biggest supplier, the Serum Institute of India, stopped exporting vaccines in March to deal with the epidemic on the subcontinent.
Meanwhile, countries including Seychelles, Chile and Bahrain, relying on Chinese-made vaccines, have seen outbreaks even after reaching relatively high levels of coverage, raising questions about the shots’ effectiveness.
Dora Curry, an Atlanta-based director of health equity at the charity CARE, said she is deeply worried that while children in Germany, France and the U.S. are getting immunized, relief is slow to arrive for people far more vulnerable in poor countries.
“If there were a way I could give that dose to somebody in Uganda, I would,” said Curry, who acknowledged she will probably have her 11-year-old daughter immunized when she is eligible. “But this just speaks to the problems with the distribution system we have.”
Global COVID-19 deaths hit 4 million amid rush to vaccinate
The global death toll from COVID-19 eclipsed 4 million Wednesday as the crisis increasingly becomes a race between the vaccine and the highly contagious delta variant.
The tally of lives lost over the past year and a half, as compiled from official sources by Johns Hopkins University, is about equal to the number of people killed in battle in all of the world’s wars since 1982, according to estimates from the Peace Research Institute Oslo.
Read: Global Covid-19 incidence rises 3% over week: WHO
The toll is three times the number of people killed in traffic accidents around the globe every year. It is about equal to the population of Los Angeles or the nation of Georgia. It is equivalent to more than half of Hong Kong or close to 50% of New York City.
Even then, it is widely believed to be an undercount because of overlooked cases or deliberate concealment.
With the advent of the vaccine, deaths per day have plummeted to around 7,900, after topping out at over 18,000 a day in January.
But in recent weeks, the mutant delta version of the virus first identified in India has set off alarms around the world, spreading rapidly even in vaccination success stories like the U.S., Britain and Israel.
Read:Covid nightmare in Bangladesh: Daily-death toll crosses 200
Britain, in fact, recorded a one-day total this week of more than 30,000 new infections for the first time since January, even as the government prepares to lift all remaining lockdown restrictions in England later this month.
Other countries have reimposed preventive measures, and authorities are rushing to step up the campaign to dispense shots.
At the same time, the disaster has exposed the gap between the haves and the have-nots, with vaccination drives barely getting started in Africa and other desperately poor corners of the world because of extreme shortages of shots.
The U.S. and other wealthy countries have agreed to share at least 1 billion doses with struggling countries.
The U.S. has the world’s highest reported death toll, at over 600,000, or nearly 1 in 7 deaths, followed by Brazil at more than 520,000, though the real numbers are believed to be much higher in Brazil, where President Jair Bolsonaro’s far-right government has long downplayed the virus.
Read:Global Covid cases top 184.5 million
The variants, uneven access to vaccines and the relaxation of precautions in wealthier countries are “a toxic combination that is very dangerous,” warned Ann Lindstrand, a top immunization official at the World Health Organization.
Instead of treating the crisis as a “me-and-myself-and-my-country” problem, she said, “we need to get serious that this is a worldwide problem that needs worldwide solutions.”
Covid nightmare in Bangladesh: Daily-death toll crosses 200
In a disastrous turn, Bangladesh recorded 201 deaths in 24 hours until Wednesday morning, its highest-ever single-day fatalities.
The first seven days of July have been the deadliest ones in the current pandemic, with the country registering 1,090 deaths during the period as it is struggling with a catastrophic second wave of the virus.
Besides, the country logged 11,162 new cases as the case positivity rate declined slightly to 31.32 % from Tuesday’s 31.46%.
The new numbers took Bangladesh’s death toll to 15, 593 while the caseload to 977,568. The fresh coronavirus cases were detected after testing 37,147 samples during the period, according to a handout of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
The case fatalities remained unchanged at 1.60% after remaining static at 1.59% for a long time.
Read: Bangladesh hits new grim record with 164 single-day Covid deaths
Bangladesh’s Covid hotspot Khulna continues to be the hardest hit with the district registering the highest number of single-day deaths yet again, 66. Dhaka followed Khulna with 58 deaths during this time.
Besides, 21 people died in Chattogram division, 18 in Rajshahi, 14 in Rangpur, nine in Sylhet, eight in Mymensingh and seven in Barishal divisions.
So far, 850,502 people have recovered from the disease putting the recovery rate at 87%, which is declining unlike other indicators.
Among Wednesday’s 201 deceased, 119 were men and 82 were women.
Of them, 1 belonged to the age group of 11-20, four were within 21-30, nine between 31-40, 25 between 41-50, 47 between 51-60 and 115 were above 60 years old.
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen on Wednesday said Bangladesh is hopeful of receiving more vaccine doses this month from Japan, the European Union (EU) and the USA under COVAX facility apart from a steady flow of that from China.
Read: Covid getting deadlier in Bangladesh; record-high 153 die in 24 hours
“We’re in a good position now. I should say we’ve made a line up. I think there’ll be no vaccine crisis, and the vaccination programme will continue uninterruptedly,” he told a small group of reporters at his residence.
Dr Momen said Bangladesh is expected to get around 2.5 million doses of vaccine from Japan while 1 million from the EU under the COVAX facility. “These’re likely to be AstraZeneca vaccine doses.”
In another positive turn of events, people will now be able to register for Covid-19 vaccine through imo, according to a press release of the popular messaging app.
The move aims to amplify the mass vaccination efforts of the Bangladesh government, said the press release issued on Wednesday.
Covid getting deadlier in Bangladesh; record-high 153 die in 24 hours
The second wave of Covid-19 in Bangladesh is getting much deadlier with 153 more people losing lives to the virus in 24 hours till Sunday morning, pushing up the total death toll to 15,065.
With this, the daily-death record was shattered thrice in the country within eight days as 143 deaths were reported on July1 and 119 on June 27.
During the period, 8,661 more Covid cases were detected after testing 29,879 samples, overwhelming the country’s healthcare system quickly.
This raises the country's case positivity rate during the period to 28.99% from Saturday’s 27.39%, according to a handout provided by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
However, the fatality rate remained static at 1.59%
With the fresh cases, Bangladesh’s caseload mounted to 944,917 today, said the DGHS.
So far, 833,897 people have recovered from the virus infections, putting the recovery rate at 88.25%.
Khulna division today recorded 51 deaths while Dhaka saw 46. Besides, 15 people each in Chattogram and Rangpur, 12 in Rajshahi, nine in Mymensingh, three in Barishal and two in Sylhet divisions died of Covid-19 today.
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.
Also read: Khulna logs record 46 single-day Covid deaths
Herd immunity unlikely anytime soon
Although its study suggests around 71 percent of Dhaka city dwellers have already gained antibodies for coronavirus, an icddr,b scientist says herd immunity threshold is still out of reach in Bangladesh’s capital, let alone the whole country to reach it.
Dr Rubhana Raqib, a senior scientist at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b), also says it may not be possible to attain the long-term herd immunity for Covid-19 as long as the virus continues to mutate as she thinks highly contagious new variants can break people’s immune protection gained either from the previous infections or vaccination.
In a recent interview with UNB, she also said it is generally assumed that Covid-19 may remain active like influenza and other flues for a long time and it is quite possible that people will need to receive the vaccine at a regular interval until the virus loses its mutation or virulence capability.
icddr,b conducted a study titled “Driving Factors of Covid-19 in Slums and Non-Slum Areas of Dhaka and Chittagong,” between October 2020 and February 2021 to evaluate the extent of the spread of the virus in the slum and non-slum communities of the two cities.
Covid claims lives of 15 more people in Khulna
Fifteen more people have died of Covid-19 at three different hospitals in Khulna district in 24 hours till Sunday morning, health officials said.
Fourteen of them died of Covid-19 while the rest one died after showing Covid symptoms, said nodal officer at Khulna Corona Dedicated Hospital Dr Suhas Ranjan Haldar.
Of the total deceased, seven people died at the dedicated Covid facility of Khulna Medical College and Hospital, two succumbed to the virus at the corona unit of Khulna General Hospital and six at the private Gazi Medical College Hospital, he said.
READ: Khulna gasps for breath
According to him, 197 people are currently undergoing treatment at the hospital. Of them, 102 people are getting treatment in the red zone of the hospital, 55 in the yellow zone, 20 in ICU (intensive care unit), and 20 in HDU (high deficiency unit).
Some 35 people were admitted to the hospital during the 24-hour period, while 36 were discharged from the hospital, he said.
Gazi Mizanur Rahman, owner of Gazi Medical College Hospital, said six people died of Covid-19 during the period. Besides, some 115 people are currently undergoing treatment at the hospital, he added.
Moreover, two people died of Covid-19 at the corona unit of Khulna General Hospital while 65 people are undergoing treatment at the hospital, said Dr Kazi Abu Rashed, spokesman of the hospital.
READ: 10 more Covid patients die in Khulna
Amid an alarming surge in Covid-19 cases and deaths over the past few weeks, Khulna division is now clamouring for oxygen -- a component key in saving the lives of critical patients.
While few hospitals in Khulna division have already run out of the life-saving gas, many other medical facilities are operating on the edge due to an acute shortage of oxygen.
Read: Khulna Division sees highest daily death toll of 32 in single day
During the past week, seven Covid-19 patients have died at Satkhira Medical College Hospital in Satkhira district due to the unavailability of oxygen. A probe was ordered into the deaths on June 30.