Highest Covid deaths since Oct

The health directorate yesterday reported 21 new Covid-19 deaths -- the highest since October 6 last year.

With this, the total number of deaths due to Covid-19 rose to 28,329.

In the past week till yesterday, 120 Covid-19 patients died. The number was 73 the previous week.

Of those who died yesterday, 14 were male and seven female.

Experts said the spike in casualties is a consequence of the Omicron variant.

First reported on December 9 last year in the country, the highly transmissible Omicron variant began the third wave of Covid-19, raising the positivity rate to an all-time high, according to DGHS data.

"We have to wait for a few more days to be sure about how much havoc the Omicron will wreak" Dr Mushtuq Hussain, consultant of the Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) told The Daily Star yesterday.

A total of 10,378 people tested positive in the 24 hours till 8:00am yesterday.

The positivity rate rose to 31.10 percent after testing 33,373 samples countrywide.

Hospitals have been swarming with new patients every day.

According to the DGHS, there were around 3,000 Covid-19 patients undergoing treatment in hospitals across the country as of yesterday noon.

The overall bed-occupancy rate has increased to almost 20 percent yesterday, from around five percent on January 1, according to DGHS's Covid-19 Dynamic Dashboard.

The ICU bed-occupancy rate has also increased to 26 percent from 12, while in the High Dependency Unit it went up to 30 from 10. 

The rise in the transmission has also put healthcare staffers involved in testing under pressure.

"We have been forced to hire people from outside as many of the staffers involved in Covid-19 testing are now infected. Doctors, nurses and other staffers are also getting infected and this has increased pressure," Mushtuq said.

This newspaper also learnt that many staffers at the Management Information System of the DGHS are also Covid positive, which has been resulting in a delay in processing Covid-19 test result data.