Bangladesh reports highest daily spike with 7626 new cases

The number of COVID-19 cases in Bangladesh hit a record daily high since the outbreak of the pandemic with 7,626 new infections being reported in a span of 24 hours, pushing the nationwide coronavirus tally to 6,59,278, so far.

The death toll rose to 9,447 with 63 new fatalities, third highest in a single day as the virus was first detected on March 8 last year, Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) said in its routine daily statement today.

It said 22.02 percent of the 34,630 samples collected in 24 hours were tested positive while the infection rate was only 2.30 percent just on February 8 this year as during the late winter season, the rate started decreasing sharply.

The samples were tested at 237 authorized medical laboratories across the country during the time as the government put in efforts to increase the number of testing centers gradually with resurgence of the pandemic.

The recovery count rose to 5,61,639 after another 3,256 patients were discharged from the hospitals during the past one day. The DGHS statistics showed of the people infected from the beginning, 85.19 percent recovered, while 1.43 percent died.

It said 41 out of the 63 died in Dhaka division alone and 39 of them were male while 24 were female and added one is between 11 to 20 years, three are in their 20s, two in their 30s, five in their 40s, 12 in their 50s while 40 are above 60 years.

Bangladesh recorded the highest number of COVID-19 fatalities on June 30 last year when the virus killed 64 people in a day.

DGHS said the country logged over 5,000 COVID-19 cases for three consecutive days as 5,181 cases were recorded on March 29, 5,082 on March 30 and 5,358 on March 31 while 6,469 cases were recorded on April 1, 6,830 on April 2, 5683 on April 3, 7087 on April 4, 7,075 on April 5, 7,213 on April 6 and 7,626 on April 7.

According to month-wise statistics last year, 51 COVID-19 positive cases were detected in March 2020, 7616 in April, 39,486 in May, 98,330 in June, 92,178 in July, 75,335 in August, 50,483 in September, 44, 205 in October, 57,248 in November and 48,578 in December.

The beginning of the current year witnessed a drastic fall of coronavirus cases in the country but the trend lasted for only two months — 21,629 cases were detected in January and 11,077 in February.

The entire month of March witnessed a sharp increase of infection when the virus infected 65,079 people.

DGHS said among the total 9,447 fatalities, 5,439 deaths occurred in Dhaka division, 1,694 in Chattogram, 517 in Rajshahi, 597 in Khulna, 280 in Barishal, 332 in Sylhet, 381 in Rangpur and 207 in Mymensingh division.

The DGHS said in order to make treatment facilities easily available for the COVID-19 patients, the government has introduced telemedicine services comprising 100 physicians for round the clock in the country.

It added that 2,70,29,517 people received healthcare services from hotline

mobile numbers and health web portals as the government formed a group of medical professionals to provide emergency healthcare services. To receive information and treatment facilities on COVID-19, the contact hotline and mobile numbers are 16263; 333; 10655 and 01944333222.

As of April 07, 2021, 10:51 GMT, 2,889,245 people have died so far from the COVID-19 outbreak and there are currently 133,136,691 confirmed cases in 212 countries and territories, according to Worldometer, a reference website that provides counters and real-time statistics for diverse topics.

China was the world’s first country which on January 11, 2020 reported the first death from the novel coronavirus in Wuhan, the capital of Central China’s Hubei province.