Country now 20th worst-hit

The country yesterday recorded 42 deaths due to Covid-19 -- the highest in a single day.

The death toll now stands at 888, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

In the past 24 hours till 2:30pm yesterday, 2,743 more people tested positive for coronavirus.

With 65,769 confirmed cases, Bangladesh now stands 20th among the virus-hit countries, according to www.worldometers.info.

In Asia, seven countries -- Qatar, China, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan India, Iran and Turkey -- have more confirmed cases than Bangladesh.

The United States remains by far the worst affected country with 1,988,700 confirmed cases, followed by Brazil with 676,494 cases.

The growing number of infection in Bangladesh may take the case number to around 90,000 by the mid of this month, Shafiun Shimul, an associate professor of health economics at Dhaka University, told The Daily Star yesterday.

Like other experts, he also said the number of tests is too little compared to the other countries.

So far, Bangladesh has tested 2,418 people in every million whereas the US has tested 62,924, according to www.worldometers.info.

Among the Asian countries with more cases than Bangladesh, Qatar has tested about 91,008 people for every million, India has tested 3,384 and Pakistan 3,099.

Based on the test results of 13,136 samples in 52 Covid-19 testing labs, the rate of positive cases was 20.88 percent yesterday, Dr Nasima Sultana, additional director general (administration) of DGHS, said during a briefing.

Meanwhile, 578 Covid-19 patients have recovered in those 24 hours, taking the total number of recoveries to 13,903 and the recovery rate to 21.14 percent.

Among the deceased, 35 were male and seven female, she said adding that 27 were from Dhaka, eight from Chattogram, two from Sylhet, two from Rajshahi, two from Khulna and the other from Mymensingh division.

Of them, 30 died in hospitals and 12 at home, the DGHS official said.

Of the deceased, one was aged between 21-30 years, seven between 31-40, nine between 41-50, seven between 51-60, 14 between 61-70, three between 71-80 and another between 91-100 years old, Nasima also said.

A total of 467 people were put in isolation during this period, she said.