Another new record in daily Covid cases

The Covid-19 infection rate hit a new record yesterday as a total of 7,087 people tested positive in the past 24 hours till 8:00am yesterday.

The new cases took the number of active cases to 84,882.

Meanwhile, the Covid-19 death toll has risen to 9,266 as 53 people died yesterday.

As part of measures to curb the spread of the virus, the government has imposed a countrywide restriction in people's movement for next seven days starting from today.

During this period, all public transport, excluding international flights, will remain suspended and all shopping malls will remain closed. However, shop owners will be allowed to sell their products online via home delivery service.

Only open-air kitchen markets and shops selling essential items can remain operational from 8:00am to 4:00pm.

The government has, however, kept the ongoing Amar Ekushey Book Fair opened.

Although experts said there was a need for complete shutdown, they said the current measures will still help reduce transmission, but it will depend on successful enforcement.

"These are very good measures and will reduce the deaths, I think. But it will depend on how successfully those are enforced," Prof Ridwanur Rahman, an infectious disease specialist, told The Daily Star yesterday.

About the book fair, he, however, said, "This is a bad example. It will create dissatisfaction among other businesses. Nothing should be more important than lives."

Speaking to The Daily Star yesterday, Prof Nazrul Islam, member of the Technical Advisory Committee (NTAC) on the Covid-19 pandemic, said, "Already a good number of people has left Dhaka before the new directives come into effect from tomorrow [today]. So, there is a chance of the virus spreading in the periphery spreading the virus to the periphery. The directives, otherwise, are good."

He said, "Now it is important to increase daily tests and ensure proper enforcement [of the directives]."

Yesterday the positivity rate, which is an important parameter to measure the level of virus transmission, was 23.07 percent against a total of 30,724 tests conducted yesterday.

According to the World Health Organization, the transmission will be considered under control if the positivity rate remains stagnant below five percent continuously for at least two weeks.

After the second spike in November and December last year, the positivity rate started going down from January. Throughout February, this rate was below three percent but started rising early last month.

For nearly a month now, hospitals, especially in Dhaka city, have been struggling with the rising number of critical patients.

As of noon yesterday, only two ICU beds out of 118 in Dhaka's Covid dedicated public hospitals were vacant.

Only 113 out of 2,515 general beds in those hospitals were vacant.

Dr Sarwar Ul Alam, director of Kuwait-Bangladesh Friendship Hospital, the country's first Covid dedicated hospital, told The Daily Star yesterday, "The surge in number of patients is on the rise again. We have 15 ICU beds, but the number of those in need of the ICU is very high."

With the latest count, the total number of confirmed cases is now 6,37,364.

In the last 24 hours till 8:00am yesterday, 2,364 patients recovered, raising the number of recoveries to 5,49,775, which is more than 87 percent of all cases detected so far.

On March 8 last year, the DGHS reported the first three cases while the first death was reported on March 18.

Of those who died yesterday, 38 were males and 20 females.