Infection rate still above 10%

With 1,899 new Covid-19 cases, Bangladesh clocked a 10.4% infection rate on Friday – a double digit figure for two days in a row.

In the past 24 hours until Friday morning, the country registered 18 deaths from the novel coronavirus – up from the previous day's fatality count.

On Thursday, the country recorded 2,187 cases – the highest single day count in the past 100 days – and confirmed 16 deaths. On that day, the resurging infections reached 10.45% – the highest since 19 December last year.    

Although the infection rate was below 5% for the last two months, all the major Covid-19 indicators – new cases, mortality and daily infection rate – have been spiralling since the beginning of March.

The daily counts have been exceeding 1,000 cases per day since 10 March.  

In a press release, the health directorate, Friday, said 18,917 samples were tested in the past 24 hours.

With the new caseload, the country's total recorded cases rose to 566,838. Of the total infected, 8,642 patients died while 519,141 people recovered until Friday.      

Among the latest day's victims, 11 were men and seven were women. Thirteen of them hailed from Dhaka, three from Chattogram and one each from the Rangpur and Mymensingh divisions.

Of the deceased, 16 died in different hospitals across the country while two died at home.

The death rate in the country stood at 1.52% while the overall infection rate was 12.98%.

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