Govt mulling quarantining all coming from abroad
The government is mulling over quarantining all passengers from abroad as it prepares to fight a possible spike in novel coronavirus cases in the coming winter.
Besides, the government is considering to supply masks to the people for free to ensure everybody maintains health safety guidelines to remain safe from contracting the virus.
The issues were discussed at a special inter-ministerial meeting at the health ministry yesterday, with Health Minister Zahid Maleque in the chair, said a press release of the ministry.
Secretaries and top officials from different ministries and departments concerned joined the meeting both online and in person.
Speaking at the meeting, the health minister said, "If people do not become careful and do not maintain health guidelines, those may be the reasons to fear. So, there is no alternative to wearing masks to check a second wave [of the virus]."
The senior secretary of the Local Government Division, Helal Uddin Ahmed, said his department could provide funds for buying and distributing masks among the general people for free, a meeting source told The Daily Star quoting the secretary.
Some other participants of the meeting commented positively on Helal Uddin's proposal.
Around 40,000 passengers enter the country a week. The meeting discussed screening them for Covid-19 at the port of entries and quarantining them, the source added.
The health minister also urged the government departments concerned to take steps to make sure that there are no large gatherings at social events in the coming winter.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said time has come to reintroduce testing for every inbound passenger at the ports as there is resurgence of Covid-19 transmission across the world.
17 MORE DIE
Seventeen more people died from Covid-19 and 1,659 new infections were recorded in the country in 24 hours till 8:00am yesterday.
With this, the total number of deaths has reached 5,983. The death rate is 1.45 percent, according to a press release of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
Following the confirmation of the latest cases, the total number of novel coronavirus cases in the country rose to 412,647. The total positivity rate now stands at 17.37 percent.
A total of 14,061 tests were conducted in 113 labs across the country during the same 24-hour period. With 1,659 new infections, the positivity rate was 11.80 percent.
Meanwhile, 1,886 patients recovered from Covid-19 during the 24-hour period, raising the total number of recoveries to 329,787. The recovery rate is about 80 percent.
All but one of the 17 deceased were males. All of them died in hospitals, said the DGHS press release.
One each of the dead was aged between 11 and 20, and 31 and 40, four were between 41 and 50, three between 51 and 60 and the rest were above 60 years old.
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