Another day, another Covid deaths record
The Covid-19 situation continues to get grimmer as officials yesterday reported 258 deaths, shattering the previous day's record of 247 deaths.
In such a situation, physicians at hospitals, burdened with coronavirus patients, said ensuring a "community-based protocol" could ease the pressure off those hospitals to some extent.
"Increasing the hospitals' capacity is not a solution during such a public health crisis. The national Covid-19 treatment protocol should be amended by focusing on the community-based treatment strategy and community surveillance," Forhad Uddin Hasan Chowdhury Maruf, medicine and infectious disease specialist at Dhaka Medical College Hospital, told The Daily Star yesterday.
He said if Covid-19 patients with mild and moderate symptoms could be treated at community clinics or under similar arrangements, tertiary hospitals could get some relief.
The Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) reported a positivity rate of 28.82 percent after testing 52,478 samples in 24 hours preceding 8:00am yesterday. It was the highest number of tests in a day.
The positivity rate was 29.82 percent.
Infections and deaths caused by the virus have been setting new grim records since the Delta variant spread at the community level in May.
The highest positivity rate of 54 percent was reported in Munshiganj yesterday followed by 53 percent in Gazipur.
Besides, five out of 11 surrounding districts of Dhaka, including Shariatpur, Rajbari, Narsingdi, Manikganj, and Faridpur, had positivity rates of 30 percent and above.
In the Dhaka division, the average positivity rate was 25 percent yesterday.
The Covid-19 situation appeared to be the worst across Sylhet, Barishal and Chattogram divisions with 40, 37 and 35 percent positivity rates, according to the DGHS data.
Among other divisions, the positivity rates was 26 percent in Mymensingh, 28 percent in Khulna, 27 percent in Rangpur, and 25 percent in Rajshahi.
District-wise analysis showed that 12 districts had positivity rates above 40 percent while 24 other districts had positivity rates between 30 and 40 percent, and 23 districts between 20 and 30 percent.
As of yesterday, the pandemic has caused 19,779 confirmed deaths and 11,94,752 infections, shows the data.
Of those reported dead yesterday, 138 were male and 120 female. Of them, 84 were in Dhaka, 61 in Chattogram, 50 in Khulna, 21 in Rajshahi, 13 in Barishal, 11 each in Rangpur and Mymensingh, and seven in Sylhet divisions.
While the Covid-19 deaths and cases have been leaping, especially following the Eid, hospitals across the country have been struggling with the rush of patients every day.
The authorities of 100-bed Narsingdi District Hospital, where 80 beds were dedicated for Covid-19 patients, have issued a notice saying they can no longer admit new patients, reports our correspondent from Brahmanbaria.
Meanwhile, relatives of a female patient allegedly vandalised the ICU unit of a hospital in Noakhali after the patient died "due to an interruption in oxygen supply", reports our correspondent in the district.
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