Over 7,000 daily Covid cases again

With fresh Covid-19 cases crossing 7,000-mark for the second consecutive day yesterday, Cabinet Secretary Khandaker Anwarul Islam said they would make decision on extension of ongoing restriction in a meeting on Thursday.

"It will be evaluated on Thursday. Let's see what the situation turns to," Anwarul said while speaking at a press briefing after yesterday's Cabinet meeting.

As part of measures to curb the spread of the virus, the government has imposed a countrywide restriction on people's movement for seven days starting yesterday.

During the period, all public transport, excluding international flights, will remain suspended and all shopping malls will remain closed. However, shop owners will be allowed to sell their products online via home delivery service.

Only open-air kitchen markets and shops selling essential items can remain operational from 8:00am to 4:00pm.

In an event in Manikganj yesterday, Director General of Directorate General of Health Services Prof ABM Khurshid Alam made a similar statement about the restriction.

Whether the ongoing restriction would be prolonged or not will depend on the Covid-19 infection rate in the country, he said while replying to a journalist's query during his visit to Manikganj 250-bed District Hospital.

The DGHS chief also said, "The health ministry will campaign across the country with the help of information ministry to raise awareness."

In 24 hours ending at 8:00am yesterday, 7,075 people tested positive, while the number was 7,087 the previous day.

With yesterday's new cases, the total number of people infected reached 6,44,439, said a DGHS press release.

The positivity rate, however, increased a bit yesterday -- to 23.40 from the previous day's 23.07.

Some 30,239 samples were tested across the country in the 24 hours.

During the time, 52 people died from Covid-19, raising the death toll to 9,318.

The death rate was 1.45 percent.

Meanwhile, 2,932 Covid-19 patients recovered in the 24 hours, taking the total number of recoveries to 5,55,414.

This is more than 86 percent of all confirmed cases in the country.

Among the 52 deceased, 34 were men and 18 women.

One was aged under 10 and another between 11 and 20. Three were aged between 31 and 40, six 41 and 50, nine 51 and 60, and 32 were above 60 years, according to the DGHS press release.

After the second spike in November and December last year, the positivity rate started going down from January. Throughout February, this rate was below three percent but started rising early last month.

For nearly a month now, hospitals, especially in Dhaka city, have been struggling with the rising number of critical patients.

As of yesterday noon, only 11 ICU beds out of 118 in Dhaka's Covid-19 dedicated public hospitals were vacant.

Of the 2,555 general beds in those hospitals, only 201 remained vacant.