Covid-19 death toll crosses 50 in a day in Bangladesh

Death tolls due to the novel coronavirus have been increasing since the shutdown ended. On Tuesday, 53 died of Covid-19, across the country, reaching a total number of 1,262 deaths.
 
Until May, the total death toll was 650 people in 85 days since Covid-19 hit first; however, just sixteen days out of the shutdown in June, 612 more deaths were reported.
 
The infection rate is also rising rapidly with 3,862 new infections reported on Tuesday. 
 
The total infections were 47,153 until May whereas the number doubled in the last sixteen days, reaching 94,481.
 
After the garment factories opened, the infection and death rates started climbing and they deteriorated further from May 31 when shops were allowed to open countrywide.
 
"Among the deceased, 47 were men and six were women. Among them: 30 were from Dhaka, 14 from Chattogram, four from Rajshahi, three from Khulna, and one, each, from Barishal and Mymensingh," Professor Dr Nasima Sultana, additional director general of Directorate General of Health Service, said during the regular bulletin on Tuesday.
 
The Covid-19 situation became critical due to a lack of proper planning, coordination and good governance. The government failed to utilise the adequate time it had to counter Covid-19, said the Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB), based on its study of the prevailing pandemic situation between April 15 and June 14.
 
As per the study, in 53 percent hospitals covered by the study, Covid-19 disrupted general medical services, and among these, 71 percent of hospitals have poor quality safety equipment and many health workers were affected or refused to provide services.
 
Additionally, no doctor from 25 percent of hospitals, no nurse and other health workers from 34 percent of hospitals received personal protective equipment.
 
Moreover, poor quality safety equipment has been provided in 59 percent of hospitals while there were allegations of negligence in the duty of healthcare workers at 23 percent of hospitals.
 
So far, only 0.29 percent of people have access to testing facilities in Bangladesh, the second-lowest considering the population ratio among South Asian countries, and 149th in the world.
 
TIB's study also showed only 41.3 percent of the hospitals could conduct the testing from their district while the 48.7 percent had to send the collected samples to divisional cities or Dhaka for testing.
 
Covid-19 testing labs cannot utilise their full capacity because of the shortage of skilled manpower, the study added.
 
On Tuesday, 2,237 patients recovered, bringing the total number to 36,234 – around 38.38 percent against the infection.
 
A total 17,214 samples were tested on Tuesday in 61 labs across the country. 
 
So far 533,717 samples have been tested.