Bangladesh up 4 notches in Bloomberg Covid Resilience Ranking

Bangladesh has advanced four rungs to rank 44th among 53 countries in the Bloomberg's Covid Resilience Ranking for August released on Thursday.

Bangladeshi experts also agree with the statement that the coronavirus situation in the country is improving day by day as the daily infection tally has seen significant declines in the past few days.

They, however, have mentioned that the government should have taken a cautious approach in reopening all economic activities as a significant number of people remain unvaccinated against the pandemic.

Mushtaq Hussain, adviser to the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) told The Business Standard, "Now we have three things to do. First, as the infection rate is decreasing, it is time to isolate patients by identifying them one by one.

"Secondly, we have to follow the health guidelines strictly. We see when the infection rate comes down, most of us show indifference to following hygiene rules."

Thirdly, he said, the government should ensure vaccination for all as soon as possible. "Vaccines may not be fully effective in preventing infections, as we see vaccinated people also are getting infected. Still, vaccination is one of the effective ways to control the death toll," he added.

In Bloomberg's Covid Resilience Ranking, India has moved two places up to the 42nd position as infection and death counts have been going down from its peaks there.

Besides, Pakistan also managed to move two places up to secure the 43rd place in the ranking.

As a result of the resurgence in Covid-19 infections, Bangladesh's Resilience Ranking dropped from the 28th position in March to 41st in April, 40th in May, 46th in June, and 48th in July.

Bloomberg scores the largest 53 economies based on 12 data indicators that span Covid-19 containment, quality of healthcare, vaccination coverage, overall mortality and – as of last month – progress towards restarting travel and easing border curbs.

Bangladesh achieved an overall score of 54.5 out of 100, while India scored 56.3 and Pakistan 54.7 in the latest ranking.

A score of 100 indicates the best performance and 0 indicates the worst.

When it comes to vaccination, Bangladesh shielded only 7.1% of its population while India jabbed more than three times Bangladesh by vaccinating 21.5% and Pakistan vaccinated 12.3%, according to Bloomberg.

Meanwhile, Norway has ranked first on the list with a score of 80.1 while Malaysia is in the last position with a score of 42.7.

The US plunged 20 places as new infections rebounded, overwhelming healthcare facilities in some areas. The world's largest economy is mired in political division over mask and vaccine mandates.

China slid 15 spots as it used strict curbs to stamp out a delta outbreak that reached half of its provinces. Even though the number of infections was small compared to elsewhere, the targeted lockdowns, travel bans and mass testing used to contain cases to zero weighed on its Flight Capacity recovery, Lockdown Severity and Community Mobility scores.

Daily cases see further decline

The number of new cases declined to 3,535 during the last 24 hours until Friday 8am, which took the case tally to 14,86,153.

The country reported 117 more deaths from Covid-19 in the same period, taking the death toll to 25,846.

Also, the positivity rate fell to 12.78% in the 24 hours period with a downward trend in infections that has been prevailing in the country for the past few weeks.

The positivity rate reported today is the lowest in 78 days as the country recorded 12.33% of infections on 9 June this year. The death rate remained unchanged at 1.74%.

In the past 24 hours, Dhaka division reported 40 deaths followed by 37 in Chattogram, 11 in Khulna, 10 in Sylhet, six in Barishal, five in Rangpur, four each died in Rajshahi and Mymensingh divisions.

Also, 6,485 patients were declared free of Covid-19 during the last 24 hours, with a 94.50% recovery rate. The Covid-19 victims' gender breakdown shows that 16,816 of the total deceased across the country were men and 9,030 were women.

The country's maiden cases were reported on 8 March last year and the first death from the virus was reported on 18 March.