Positivity rate dips to 9-month low

The percentage of Covid-19 cases that come out positive was the lowest in nine months yesterday.

The health directorate reported 718 new cases in the 24 hours until 8:00am yesterday.

Against a total of 14,363 tests in those 24 hours, the positivity rate was 5 percent.

On April 5, the positivity rate was 4.90 percent, according to the data from the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

With the latest figure, the total number of positive cases rose to 5,24,020.

According to experts, the daily positivity rate is one of the important parameters to measure the transmission level of the virus.

If the rate remains below five percent continuously for two weeks and does not increase, it means the transmission is under control, epidemiologists said.

Throughout September and October, the positivity rate was below 12 percent almost every day and started increasing from the first week of November.

During the last seven days, it started decreasing again.

In the 24 hours, meanwhile, 16 more people have died with coronavirus infection, raising the death count to 7,8119.

This was around 1.49 percent of all confirmed cases in the country since the first three cases were reported on March 8.

The DGHS said another 963 patients have recovered in the same 24-hour period. With this, 4,68,681 patients have recovered.

Of the 16 deceased, 10 were male. All of them died in hospitals, according to the press release.

One of them was aged between 31 and 40, one between 51 and 60, and the rest 14 were above 60 years of age.

Of all deceased so far, more than 80 percent were above 50 years old, according to the DGHS data.

Of the yesterday's deceased, 10 were from Dhaka division while one each was from Chattogram, Rajshahi, Khulna and Mymensingh divisions and the rest two were from Sylhet division.