vaccination
Mass inoculation to restart Monday with Sinopharm, Tuesday with Moderna: DGHS
Mass inoculation for Covid-19 will restart from Monday (July 12) with Chinese vaccine Sinopharm in district and upazila hospitals and from Tuesday (July 13) with COVAX’s Modera jabs in municipal hospitals, said the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) Sunday.
Line director of the vaccine deployment committee, Professor Dr Shamsul Haque announced the news during the regular Covid-19 bulletin of the DGHS.
By Sunday Moderna doses will reach vaccine centres across the country, while Sinopharm doses were sent Saturday to all the municipal centres, he said.
Also read: Massive vaccination to begin in July: PM
The additional stock has been ensured for sending to districts and upazilas, said Dr Shamsul Haque, mentioning that all the preparation for mass inoculation has been completed.
As from Monday and the next day, people across the country will start getting shots again, it can be said that mass inoculation for Covi-19 resumed, he added.
Dr Haque said the 1 lakh doses of Pfizer vaccine so far received will be administered at the seven hospitals of Dhaka and after that Moderna vaccine doses will be administered in these hospitals.
Also read: Registration for Covid vaccination to restart Thursday
In the other 40 Covid-19 vaccination centres of the city, Sinopharm vaccine shots will be administered till Monday and after that Moderna shots will be administered in those hospitals, he added.
Soon a decision will be taken on the urgent vaccination needs of the students who want to go abroad for study as a conversation with the Prime Minister is ongoing, said the line director of the vaccine deployment committee.
Until now expatriate workers were being vaccinated in seven centres of Dhaka, but from Monday they will be able to receive the shots from any medical college of the country, said Dr Shamsul.
Soon, 1,090 SUST students to get a shot in the arm
Some 1,090 resident students of Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST) will soon get a shot in the arm.
The university authorities have published the first list of students who will get the jabs on priority basis as per the directives of the University Grants Commission (UGC), on the SUST website. These students will have to fill up the registration form on Surokkha App.
Prof Farid Uddin Ahmed, vice-chancellor of the university, said, “The government will provide Covid jabs to university students on priority basis. In the first phase, some 1.090 will get the shots. All our students will be eventually vaccinated."
The UGC on June 1 decided to vaccinate university students across Bangladesh at the earliest so that their dormitories could be reopened.
READ: University students to be vaccinated for reopening dorms: UGC
The decision was taken at a virtual meeting chaired by Education Minister Dr Dipu Moni. The vice-chancellors of public universities and officials of the Education Ministry and UGC took part in the meeting.
As per the instructions of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, all the university students would be vaccinated on priority basis, starting with residential ones.
READ: CU postpones exams, Dhaka students to return home by university bus
35-years-olds to be made eligible for Covid jabs: DGHS DG
The eligible age for receiving Covid-19 jabs in Bangladesh will be officially lowered to 35, from the current 40, said the Directorate General of Health services on Monday.
DGHS DG Dr ABM Khurshid Alam revealed about the expanded age range during a conversation with the reporters today.
A notification will be issued in this regard soon, he said.
READ: 16 more hospitalised in 24 hrs as dengue cases soar: DGHS
Farmers and workers are going to be included in the list for vaccine registration, said Khurshid Alam.
A list of 1,45,000 students of public universities collected from the University Grants Commission (UGC) has been sent to the Information and Telecommunications Department and a letter will be sent in this regard, said DGHS DG.
At first, only people above 55 years old were announced to be eligible for vaccine registration.
Later the age limit was lowered twice by DGHS to bring more people under the vaccination drive.
Currently Covid-19 vaccine registration is going on in three priority categories- front line law enforcement officers, medical students and residential students of universities. In these cases the age requirement is waived.
READ: Nationwide lockdown not needed if transmission in Dhaka, nearby districts is controlled: DGHS
Vaccination 'most patriotic thing', COVID not yet finished: Biden
Calling a vaccination “the most patriotic thing you can do,” President Joe Biden on Sunday mixed the nation’s birthday party with a celebration of freedom from the worst of the pandemic. He tempered the strides against COVID-19 with a warning that the fight against the virus wasn’t over.
“Today, all across this nation, we can say with confidence: America is coming back together,” Biden declared as he hosted more than 1,000 service members, first responders and other guests for a July Fourth celebration on the South Lawn of the White House.
Read: Biden urges shots for young adults as variant concern grows
For Biden it was a long-awaited opportunity to highlight the success of the vaccination campaign he championed. The event was the largest yet of his presidency, the clearest indication yet that the U.S. had moved into a new phase of virus response. Shifting from a national emergency to a localized crisis of individual responsibility, the nation also moved from vaccinating Americans to promoting global health.
“This year the Fourth of July is a day of special celebration, for we’re emerging from the darkness of a year of pandemic and isolation, a year of pain fear and heartbreaking loss,” the president said before fireworks lit up the sky over the National Mall.
Noting the lockdowns that shuttered businesses, put millions out of work and separated untold numbers of families, Biden said: “Today we’re closer than ever to declaring our independence from a deadly virus. That’s not to say the battle against COVID-19 is over. We’ve got a lot more work to do.”
Biden wanted all Americans to celebrate, too, after enduring 16 months of disruption in the pandemic and more than 605,000 deaths. The White House encouraged gatherings and fireworks displays all around the country to mark — as though ripped from a Hollywood script — the nation’s “independence” from the virus.
And there was much to cheer: Cases and deaths from COVID-19 were at or near record lows since the outbreak began, thanks to the robust U.S. vaccination program. Businesses and restaurants were open, hiring was picking up and travel was getting closer to pre-pandemic levels.
However, Biden’s optimism was measured for good reason. The vaccination goal he had set with great fanfare for July Fourth — 70% of the adult population vaccinated — fell short at 67%, according to figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More concerning to officials was the gap between heavily vaccinated communities where the virus was dying out and lesser-vaccinated ones where a more infectious variant of the virus was already taking hold.
Read: Biden promotes milestone of 300M vaccine shots in 150 days
More than 200 Americans still die each day from COVID-19, and tens of millions have chosen not to get the lifesaving vaccines.
“If you’ve had the vaccine, you’re doing great,” said Dr. Mati Hlatshwayo Davis, an infectious disease physician at the John Cochran VA Medical Center and St. Louis Board of Health. “If you haven’t had the vaccine, you should be alarmed and that’s just the bottom line, there’s no easy way to cut it.”
“But that doesn’t take away from the fact that this country is in a significantly better place,” she said.
Still, about 1,000 counties have a vaccination rate below 30%, and the federal government is warning that they could become the next hot spots as virus restrictions ease.
The administration was sending “surge” teams to Colorado and Missouri. Additional squads of infectious disease experts, public health professionals and doctors and nurses were getting ready to assist in additional locations with a combination of low vaccination rates and rising cases.
Overall, the vastly improved American landscape stood in stark contrast with much of the rest of the world, where there remained vast vaccine deserts and wide community spread that could open the door to even more dangerous variants. The Biden administration was increasingly turning the federal response to the complicated logistics of sending excess U.S. vaccines abroad in an effort to assist other nations in beating back the pandemic.
With U.S. demand for vaccines falling even as they have been widely available for months, and as governments and businesses dangled an array of incentives at Americans to get a shot, officials were increasingly emphasizing that the consequences of disease now largely reflect the individual choices of those who are not yet vaccinated.
“The suffering and loss we are now seeing is nearly entirely avoidable,” said the CDC’s director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky.
When asked about the potential risks of holding gatherings around July Fourth in areas where there are large pockets of unvaccinated individuals, White House press secretary Jen Psaki had countered that “if individuals are vaccinated in those areas, then they are protected.”
The cookout and fireworks viewing at the South Lawn was “being done in the right way,” White House COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients said in television interviews, and “consistent” with CDC guidelines. The White House was not requiring vaccinations but was asking guests to get a COVID-19 test and to wear a mask if they are not fully vaccinated.
“For as much work there still is to do, it’s so important to celebrate the victories,” Davis said. “I’m OK with us having those pockets of joy and celebration as long as we still wake up the next day and continue to go to work and prioritize equity in vaccine distribution.”
Europe in vaccination race against COVID-19′s delta variant
Countries across Europe are scrambling to accelerate coronavirus vaccinations and outpace the spread of the more infectious delta variant, in a high-stakes race to prevent hospital wards from filling up again with patients fighting for their lives.
The urgency coincides with Europe’s summer holidays, with fair weather bringing more social gatherings and governments reluctant to clamp down on them. Social distancing is being neglected, especially among the young, and some countries are scrapping the requirement to wear masks outdoors.
Incentives for people to get shots include free groceries, travel and entertainment vouchers, and prize drawings. The president of Cyprus even appealed to a sense of patriotism.
The risk of infection from the delta variant is “high to very high” for partially or unvaccinated communities, according to the European Centre for Disease Control, which monitors 30 countries on the continent. It estimates that by the end of August, the variant will account for 90% of cases in the European Union’s 27 nations.
Also read: 'It's just the beginning': US ambassador on Moderna shipment's arrival
“It is very important to progress with the vaccine rollout at a very high pace,” the ECDC warned.
The World Health Organization is also concerned. The variant makes transmission growth “exponential,” according to Maria Van Kerkhove, its technical lead on COVID-19.
Daily new case numbers are already climbing sharply in countries like the United Kingdom, Portugal and Russia.
In the U.K., cases of the delta variant have increased fourfold in less than a month, with confirmed cases Friday up 46% on the previous week.
Portuguese health authorities this week reported a “vertiginous” rise in the delta variant, which accounted for only 4% of cases in May but almost 56% in June. The country is reporting its highest number of daily cases since February, and the number of COVID-19 patients in hospitals has surpassed 500 for the first time since early April.
Read: Bangladesh receives 1st consignment of 2.5 million Moderna vaccine doses
Reports of new infections in Russia more than doubled in June, topping 20,000 per day this week, and new deaths hit 697 on Saturday, the fifth day in a row that the daily death toll set a record.
Still, “no one wants any lockdowns,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov at a briefing, although he admitted that the virus situation in a number of Russian regions is “tense.”
In some countries, the virus is spreading much faster among younger people. In Spain, the national 14-day case notification rate per 100,000 people rose to 152 on Friday. But for the 20-29 age group, it shot up to 449.
Those numbers have triggered alarm across the continent.
The Dutch government is extending its vaccination program to those aged 12-17 to help head off a feared new surge. Greece is offering young adults 150 euros ($177) in credit after their first jab. Rome authorities are mulling the use of vans to vaccinate people at the beach. And Poland last week launched a lottery open only to adults who are fully vaccinated, with new cars among the prizes.
Portuguese authorities have extended the hours of vaccination centers, created new walk-in clinics, called up the armed forces to help run vaccination operations, and reduced the period between taking the two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine from 12 weeks to eight weeks.
“We’re in a race against the clock,” Cabinet Minister Mariana Vieira da Silva said.
Read: Bangladesh receives 1st consignment of 2mn doses of Sinopharm vaccine
In the fight against vaccine hesitancy across Europe, the appearance of variants has fed public uncertainty about how effective the shots are. In Madrid this week, Claudia Aguilar, a 58-year-old archaeologist, got her second Pfizer-BioNTech jab at an auditorium that is expanding its working hours overnight.
Nevertheless, she said she is “not sure I’ll really be immune” against future variants.
“I mean, I’m a bit skeptical that this is going to do any good,” Aguilar said.
Bartender Yevgeniya Chernyshkova lined up for a shot at Moscow’s GUM department store just off Red Square after the Russian government required vaccinations for workers in some sectors.
“Now, it’s becoming mandatory and we all understand why — because the third wave of the pandemic has started here,” she said.
Fifteen months after WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic, some governments appear more open to rewarding public patience than thinking about bringing back restrictions.
Some 40,000 fans went to England’s European Championship soccer match against Germany at London’s Wembley Stadium last week. In Portugal, new restrictions have been half-hearted, such as limiting restaurant opening hours on weekend nights.
In Moscow, however, restaurants, bars and cafes on Monday began admitting only customers who have been vaccinated, recovered from COVID-19 in the past six months or can provide a negative test in the previous 72 hours.
France lifted the last of its major restrictions Wednesday, allowing unlimited crowds in restaurants, at weddings and most cultural events despite fast-rising cases of the delta variant.
Tiago Correia, an associate professor at Lisbon’s Institute of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, detects a mood of public impatience, especially among young people keen to enjoy warm summer nights.
“People want to return to normal more quickly than the vaccination rollout is happening,” he said.
The emerging variants have shone a light on the unprecedented scale of the immunization programs. The ECDC says in the countries it surveys, 61% of people over 18 have had one shot and 40% are completely vaccinated.
But Dr. Hans Kluge, the head of the WHO’s Europe office, cautioned this week that the delta variant is poised to become dominant by August in the 53-country region his office covers. And he notes that 63% of people in that region haven’t had a first jab.
“The three conditions for a new wave of excess hospitalizations and deaths before the (fall) are therefore in place: New variants, deficit in vaccine uptake, increased social mixing,” Kluge said.
Nationwide mass vaccination to resume Thursday
Amid a serious spike of coronavirus cases, the government is going to resume the countrywide mass vaccination campaign on Thursday through administering Sinopharm jabs.
Besides, the online registration process for those who are on the priority list for vaccination resumed today (Wednesday) after a long pause.
Dr Shamsul Haque, member secretary of the Vaccine Deployment Committee, came up with the announcement at a virtual press briefing arranged by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
He said the Sinopharm jabs will be administered at 40 centres in Dhaka city and at all district hospitals from 8am to 3pm every day as in the past.
Dr Haque said the vaccine will also be given at Bangladesh Institute of Tropical and Infectious Diseases (BITID) in Chattogram and Saiddpur Sadar Hospital during the same period.
READ: Mass vaccination expected to resume in July: Principal Secretary
He said those who got registered earlier but could not receive the vaccines will be given the Sinopharm jabs now while the medical and university students and those who are on the priority lists can get registered for the vaccine. “Everyone will get an SMS from a vaccination centre after the registration and all must receive the vaccine at that centre accordingly. “In this case, the vaccine card and NID card must be brought for receiving the vaccine.”
Dr Haque said the Covid vaccination centres will remain out of the purview of the lockdown. “Those who have vaccine cards will be able to go to the relevant centre showing it.”
He said the expatriate workers who stay in countries where the Sinopharm vaccine is accepted also can receive the vaccine at the centres both in Dhaka and outside. “But no one will get the vaccine without registration.”
Besides, Dr Haque said, the Pfizer vaccine will also be administered at seven centres--Dhaka Medical College and Hospital, Salimullah Medical College and Hospital, Mugda Medical College Hospital, Shaheed Shuhrawardy Medical College and Hospital, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, Kurmitola General Hospital, and Sheikh Russel National Gastroliver Institute and Hospital—in the capital.
He said the outbound expatriate workers who are not allowed to return to their workplaces without getting Pfizer vaccine can only receive the vaccine at the seven centres as per the list from the Manpower Export Promotion Bureau.
READ: Japan opens mass vaccination centers 2 months before Games
Dr Haque said those who are supposed to receive Sinopharm jabs from these centres will have to go to alternative centres.
Global Covid cases top 169 million
Notwithstanding a drop in the number of fresh cases worldwide, the global Covid-19 tally surpassed 169 million on Saturday.
The global caseload and fatalities currently stand at 169,278,016 and 3,518,698, respectively, according to Johns Hopkins University (JHU).
So far, 1,808,194,185 vaccine doses have been administered across the world.
The US has so far registered 33,239,509 Covid cases and 593,338 deaths, as per the university data.
India has seen a slight fall in daily cases in over one and a half months as the country’s Covid-19 tally reached 27,555,457 on Friday, with 186,364 new cases added during the past 24 hours, said the federal health ministry.
READ: Global Covid deaths top 3.5 million
Besides, as many as 3,660 deaths since Thursday morning took the fatality toll to 318,895.
Brazil registered 49,768 new cases of Covid-19 in 24 hours, pushing up its total number of confirmed infections to 16,391,930, the Health Ministry said on Friday.
In the same period, 2,371 more people died from the virus, raising the pandemic death toll to 459,045.
Situation in Bangladesh
Covid-19 claimed 31 more Covid deaths, including 10 each in Dhaka and Chattogram divisions, in 24 hours till Friday morning, pushing up the country's fatality figure to 12,511.
Also, 1,358 people came out positive in 14,606 tests carried out during the same period, taking the country's caseload to 796,343.
The daily positivity rate rose to 9.30% from Thursday's 8.12%, said the Directorate General of Health Services.
Vaccination drive
The administration of the first dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine has remained suspended in Bangladesh since April 26.
Also, the country, the prime recipient of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, has suspended the registration for Covid-19 jabs due to a shortage of jabs amid a delay in the timely arrival of shipments from India.
However, recently two other vaccines, Russia's Sputnik V and China's Sinopharm, got approval from the Directorate General of Drug Administration (DGDA) for emergency use in Bangladesh.
Bangladesh launched its vaccination drive on February 7 with Oxford-AstraZeneca doses acquired from India's Serum Institute.
READ: Global Covid-19 cases hit 168 million
Bangladesh to receive 1 lakh-plus Pfizer vaccine Sunday
A Qatar Airways flight carrying a consignment of 100,620 doses of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine will arrive in Bangladesh Sunday.
On Thursday, Bangladesh approved the emergency use of the Pfizer vaccine.
Covid vaccination to get priority in budget FY22
A massive vaccination of the population for protection against Covid-19 infection will be the major focus of the Tk602,880 crore budget for 2021-2022. There will be a Tk10,000 crore special allocation for facing the impacts of Covid-19.
Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal will place the budget in Parliament on June 3.
'Bangladesh to see worst Covid outbreak by June-end'
With Covid cases soaring in frontier districts apparently because of the highly contagious Indian variant, experts fear that Bangladesh may face the worst outbreak of the virus by the end of June.
They said if the Indian variant can make its way into other areas from the bordering districts, Bangladesh is likely to witness more than 20,000 daily cases in early July.
READ: Global Covid cases top 167 million
Lack of necessary oxygen supply and other healthcare facilities may aggravate the situation, according to the experts.
Vaccine inequality in India sends many falling through gaps
As the coronavirus tears through India, night watchman Sagar Kumar thinks constantly about getting vaccines for himself and his family of five amid critical shortages of shots in the country. But even if he knew how to get one, it wouldn’t be easy.
The main way is to register through a government website. But it is in English — a language the 25-year-old Kumar and nearly 90% of Indians can’t speak, read or write — and his family has a single smartphone, with spotty internet service.
And even though his state of Uttar Pradesh gives free shots to those under 45, there is no vaccination site in his village, with the nearest hospital an hour away.
“All I can do now is hope for the best,” Kumar said.
Read:Bharat Biotech submits ‘90% of documents’ for WHO nod
The pandemic’s disparities already were stark in India, where access to health care is as stratified and unequal as many other parts of society. Now wealth and technology is further widening those chasms, and millions are falling through the gaps.
That worries health experts, who say vaccine inequality could hamper India’s already difficult fight against a virus that has been killing more than 4,000 people a day in recent weeks.
“Inequitable vaccination risks prolonging the pandemic in India,” said Krishna Udayakumar, founding director of the Duke Global Health Innovation Center at Duke University in North Carolina. “Reducing barriers for the most vulnerable populations should be a priority.”
India’s vaccination campaign began in January with a goal of inoculating 300 million of its nearly 1.4 billion people by August. So far, however, it has fully vaccinated a little over 42 million people, or barely 3% of its population.
The government didn’t reserve enough shots for the campaign and it was slow to scale up vaccine production. Then, with the country recording hundreds of thousands of new infections daily, the government on May 1 opened up vaccination to all adults.
That made an already bad shortage even worse.
Amid those challenges, the federal government also changed its policy on who can get vaccines and who must pay for them. It allotted itself half of the shots in the country and said it would give free shots to front-line workers and those 45 and older.
Individual states and private hospitals could then negotiate deals with the country’s vaccine-makers for the other half of the shots, the government said. That effectively put the burden for inoculating everyone under 45 on states and the private sector, who often ask members of the public to pay as much as $20 for a shot.
The disparities already are showing in rich states where private hospitals tend to be concentrated.
The capital of New Delhi has given first shots to 20% of its residents, while Bihar state, one of the poorest, has only given shots to about 7.6% of its population. And even states that are providing free shots often can’t keep them in stock — both because of the shortage and competition with the private sector.
Read:Japan opens mass vaccination centers 2 months before Games
Many experts say the federal policy is a mistake, and it will hit the poorest the hardest.
“Vaccinating people is the national duty of the government and they need to vaccinate everyone for free,” said K Srinath Reddy, president of the Public Health Foundation of India. “Nobody should be denied a vaccine because they are unable to afford it or register for it.”
Vaccine disparity is “not just a question of inequality but also inefficiency,” said developmental economist Jean Dreze.
If people get sick, Dreze said, they will not be able to work. That in turn could push many more into poverty.
Already, the poor have to miss work, forgo the day’s wages and travel long distances to get vaccinated.
“We should not just make vaccines free but also give people incentives to get vaccinated,” Dreze said.
The national government is seeking to address some of the concerns. It has said the website to register for shots will soon be available in Hindi and other regional languages. Still, experts point out half the population lacks internet access, so the better solution would be easier, walk-in registrations for all.
The government also has said it will alleviate the vaccine shortages, insisting there will be about 2 billion doses available between June and December. Experts, however, say the government will likely miss that goal.
India’s health ministry did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.
Read:India virus death toll passes 300,000, 3rd highest in world
Kavita Singh, 29, was making the equivalent of $250 a month working as a domestic helper in a wealthy part of the capital. But as cases began to surge in April, she lost her job.
“They were scared I would spread the virus and told me to come back only after I am vaccinated,” Singh said.
She could not afford paying for a shot, so Singh and her three daughters returned to her village in Bihar state. There’s no vaccination center nearby, and Singh said she doesn’t know if she’ll ever be able to return to New Delhi.
“We barely manage to earn enough for our daily means,” Singh said. “If we use that money for vaccines, then what will we eat?”
Can I take COVID vaccines from two different brands?
After a year of research and experiment, COVID vaccines turn out to be the savior. Several organizations already get approval from the proper authority. So far, all the approved vaccines are effective. To get full protection, two doses of vaccine are needed in four weeks of interval. There is a common question that may arise, whether the vaccine is effective if you take from two different brands. However, it is still debatable as no effective research has been published on that, but experts have given their opinion on that.
Currently, experts suggest that everyone should get the vaccine from the same brands. To create a more flexible COVID-19 vaccination environment, the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS) initiated a research named Com-COV to determine the effectiveness of mix and match the two different brands.
Read: Indian COVID variant: Why is it more deadly? How is it affecting the neighboring countries?
But, initially, it is assumed that getting vaccination from two different brands will not get you the greater protection against the diseases. In this context, Dr. Nikhil Bhayani, infectious disease specialist with Texas Health Resources, conveyed, “By using two different vaccines, there is not going to be a greater magnitude of protection against the disease.” Besides, he also recommends not to get the vaccines from two different brands yet. Hence, we should wait until the Com-COV publishes its findings.
Com-COV’s first stage experiment will come out by June or July 2021, though the study will continue for at least a year. The researcher will mix match the vaccines from all the available brands. Hence, we may need to wait a long time to get details on all brands.
Read: Russian Vaccine Sputnik V: Things we should know to fight COVID-19
Vaccines can be mix-matched in exceptional situation
While some experts suggest taking both doses from the same brand, some healthcare professionals suggest that the vaccine can be mix-matched rare cases. For instance, one can take one dose from Moderna and another dose from Pfizer. However, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), this should be considered only in rare cases.
What can be the rare cases?
The exceptional or rare case might occur if a person does not remember the vaccine brand of the first dose, or the documentation does not have the name of the brand. Further, another case can be if the first dose brand is not available anymore or at a certain point in time. However, for now, the vaccine mic match can only be done for Moderna and Pfizer as both of them are similar.
However, a question might arise if a person should wait to get the second dose from the same brand if that brand’s second dose is not available. There is no actual answer to this concern. Therefore we may take the second dose from another brand, or we may wait. But it is evident that only taking the first dose will not protect us from getting COVID. Therefore, we will need to wait for the research result to come out. Besides, it will not be wise to take decisions on our own, but we cannot make the decisions either as the health care experts and government agencies are there to guide us.
Read Covid: How this Indian firm is vaccinating the world
Global Covid cases approach 165 million
The Covid-19 situation is worsening around the world with each passing the day, despite mass vaccinations. In fact, the total global corona caseload is fast approaching 165 million.
The total cases and fatalities reached 164,610,815 and 3, 412,920, respectively, on Thursday morning, as per the latest data released by Johns Hopkins University (JHU).
So far, some 1,535,026, 536 vaccine doses have been administered around the world, according to the university.
The Covid-19 cases in the US, the worst-hit country in the world, exceeded 33 million on Thursday. The total caseload and deaths in the country now stand at 32,026,131 and 587,858, respectively, as per JHU.
Read: India’s Covid-19 hot spots on recovery road
India has been experiencing a precarious situation of handling the Covid-19 situation as the country has registered 25,496,330 cases with 283,248 deaths to date.
Brazil has the world's second-highest Covid-19 death toll, after the United States, and the third-largest caseload, following the United States and India.
The country has logged 15,812,055 cases and 441,691 deaths, as of Thursday.
Situation in Bangladesh
Bangladesh on Wednesday reported 37 Covid-19 deaths in 24 hours, taking the national count to 12,248. The mortality rate though remains static at 1.56%.
Besides, the country saw 1,608 new cases as 20,538 samples were tested during the 24-hour period, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) said.
Read: icddr,b donates essential medical supplies to DMCH for treating critically ill COVID patients
The infection rate rose to 7.83% from Tuesday’s 7.55%.
Vaccination drive
In the past 24 hours, not a single citizen in the country received the first dose of the vaccine. However, 64,377 people received the second dose during the period.
The administering of the first dose has remained suspended since April 26. Also, the country, the prime recipient of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, has suspended the registration for Covid-19 jabs due to an acute shortage of the same amid a delay in the timely arrival of shipments from India.
Read:Govt approves proposal to import Sinofarm vaccine
Bangladesh launched its vaccination drive on February 7 with Oxford-AstraZeneca doses acquired from India's Serum Institute.