Health minister fears third Covid wave if people don’t watch out

Health and Family Welfare Minister Zahid Maleque has expressed fears that a third wave of coronavirus may hit us if people are not on their guard.

The health minister expressed this concern at the inaugural of a National Nutrition Week online event, "Think about food, think about nutrition," on Thursday afternoon.

Zahid Maleque said, "Why has the corona infection suddenly increased, why did the second wave come? We handled the first wave well. The death toll dropped to 7-8 a day. The number of new cases in the country was reduced to 300-400 daily. Why did the infection suddenly rise to 7000? How did the death toll become 100? These are things to ponder."

"If we cannot identify the issues, we could be hit by a third wave of coronavirus. So we have to take care of that aspect," he said.

The minister also said, "We wandered around all over, did not wear masks, and didn't maintain social distance. Consequently, we were hit by the second wave. If we do the same things again, then a third wave will come to the country."

The health minister further added, "How much more treatment will we give? How many more beds will we have in the hospitals? How much high flow nasal canola will we give, how much oxygen will we provide? Hospitals cannot be expanded overnight. Hospital beds cannot be extended overnight. Even then we have increased from 2500 beds to 7000-8000 beds in this short time. We have also been able to handle ten times as many patients. But it will not be possible to tackle if the numbers increase any further."

"That is why we all need to be vigilant. We want to be safe from the coronavirus. Hopefully, we will go back to a normal life, our life will be better, and we will partake of nutritious food," the minister said.