Covid: A deathless day after 14 weeks
The previous deathless day in the country was 9 December 2021
With rapid infection rates of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus dropping after more than three months, no Covid death was reported in Bangladesh on Tuesday.
Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) data showed that 217 people were tested positive after testing 14,000 samples during the last 24 hours till Tuesday morning. None died during this period.
The previous deathless day in the country was 9 December 2021 but the following days witnessed the spread of the Omicron variant around the globe. The number of deaths also started to increase in parallel. However, death rates started to drop again in February.
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Since the first Covid patient was detected on 8 March 2020, the country recorded the first death after 10 days on 18 March. During the initial days, the number of deaths remained between one and three. No deaths were reported on 3 April that year.
In 2021, 20 November was another deathless day, and including this, there have been three deathless days since April 2020.
On Tuesday, the positivity rate dropped to 1.54%, which jumped up to 33% in January caused by Omicron.
Professor Nazrul Islam, a noted virologist and member of the National Technical Advisory Committee on Covid-19, told The Business Standard the number of hospitalisation, as well as deaths, was low in the third wave as Omicron is milder than other variants and most of the people received two doses of vaccine.
Many of the elderly and comorbid patients took the booster dose of the vaccine. So, there were fewer deaths compared to infections, he added.
"However, Covid has not died out. China has imposed lockdowns again. We also have to be careful of any new variant. Everyone has to take the vaccine and follow the health hygiene rules," the virologist said.
The latest figures took the country's death toll to 29,112 and the case tally to 19,49,942. Also, 1,600 Covid patients recovered during the 24 hours with a 95.61% recovery rate.
So far, 12.61 crore people took the first dose, 8.99 received two doses and over 50 lakh got the booster dose.
To ensure vaccination for everyone, the government provided vaccines to the 12-17-year age group and homeless people under special vaccination programmes. To date, 1.71 crore of students have been given the first dose and 1.39 crore received two doses.
