Covid death toll passes 14k mark

The death toll from Covid-19 in Bangladesh crossed 14,000 yesterday as health authorities reported 77 fresh deaths.

The latest deaths took the overall national tally to 14,053. The last 1,000 deaths have been recorded in just 15 days, as the number of fatalities crossed 13,000 on June 11.

The previous thousand (from 12,000 to 13,000) took a full month, as the 12,000 mark was crossed on May 11.

Still, the number of deaths recorded a substantial fall from the previous day's figure. The deadly virus was reported to have killed 108 people on Friday, the 2nd highest number in daily deaths since the outbreak of coronavirus in Bangladesh in March, 2020.

The daily caseload also fell sharply, with 4,334 new cases pushing up the total caseload to 883,138. On Friday health authorities reported 5,869 new cases.

But the drop in cases was most likely a function of reduced testing, as the day's positivity rate rose to 22.50 percent from 21.22 percent on Friday, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

Yesterday's caseload was derived from testing 19,262 samples in 554 labs across the country. Friday's number was derived from testing 27,653 samples.

If the same number of samples were tested yesterday (27,653), given the day's positivity rate, the number of cases would have exceeded yesterday's number.  

Yesterday's positivity rate was the highest since April 16, when the rate was 23.36 percent.

Meanwhile, the case fatality rate remained static at 1.59 percent.

On a positive note, 3,295 patients  recovered from  Covid-19 during the last 24 hours, with a 90.68 percent recovery rate.

Among the latest deaths, 48 were men, and 29 were women.

Chattogram overtook Khulna in terms of highest number of fatalities as 20 people were recorded dead by the viral disease in the last 24 hours in the port city.

Khulna came second in terms of daily deaths as 19 people died in the division.

Besides, 17 more died in Dhaka, nine in Rajshahi, four each in Sylhet and Rangpur, three in Mymensingh, and one in Barishal division.

Jashore's daily caseload hits new high of 469

Jashore, considered to be a high risk zone of Covid-19 spread, reported a record 469 new infections yesterday.

The new cases were detected from 940 sample tests, said Jashore Science and Technology University's Covid-19 testing team member assistant prof Shirin Nigar.

The positivity rate is a fraction under 50 percent which is extremely high. The WHO advises a positivity rate of 5 percent for two weeks as a safe level.

The fresh cases raised the district's total caseload to 11,187.

Also, five more people died of Covid-19 in the district pushing the death toll to 129.