Record 83 die in single day

Bangladesh recorded the highest Covid-19 deaths yesterday with 83 more fatalities in 24 hours till morning, taking the death toll from the virus to 9,822.

The number surpassed Sunday's figure of 78. The number was 77 the previous day.

The mortality rate remained static at 1.42 percent for the fourth consecutive day, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) said in a handout.

Bangladesh announced its first coronavirus-related death on March 18 last year. The virus claimed 568 lives in January this year, 281 in February and 638 in March.

Between 8:00am Sunday and 8:00am Monday, 7,201 new cases were recorded, pushing up the caseload to 691,957.

The infection rate jumped to 20.59 percent, up from 19.81 percent on Sunday. So far, 5,037,833 samples, including 34,968 in the 24-hour period, have been tested.

Bangladesh has been seeing record number of infections with daily case count surpassing 7,000-mark earlier this month before falling significantly on April 10 and April 11.

Meanwhile, 581,113 patients have recovered so far, including 4,523 in the same 24-hour period, the DGHS said.

Of the deceased in the 24 hours, 54 died in Dhaka division, 17 in Chattogram, three in Rajshahi, four in Khulna, two each in Barishal and Sylhet and one passed away in Rangpur.

Of all the deceased, 7,333 are men (74.66 percent) and 2,489 women (25.34 percent).

A sharp rise in cases prompted the government to enforce a seven-day "lockdown" from April 5 but it was largely ineffective. The government extended the "lockdown" by two more days and announced that it would enforce a "strict seven-day lockdown" from April 14.

Operations of all modes of public transport will remain suspended during this period.