Daily rate of vaccination declining

The number of people being vaccinated every day has been dropping over the last three days, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) data.

Yesterday, a total of 1,14,680 people were vaccinated countrywide, while the number was 1,16,300 the previous day. On Sunday, a total of 1,25,752 people were vaccinated.

With the latest figures, the total number of people vaccinated rose to 33,41,505. At least 45,30,820 people have registered to get the vaccine as of 5:30pm yesterday.

While health officials said they would need more time to reach the first month's target of 70 lakh people vaccinated, experts said the government should go for door-to-door online registration support and strengthen the campaign.

"People are considering registration process as a burden. Besides, distance of the vaccine centres is also a major cause for poor response. There is a need for door-to-door registration service in addition to setting up vaccination centers in remote areas," Prof Ridwanur Rahman, an infectious disease specialist told The Daily Star yesterday.

In the first week, between February 7 and 14, on an average 1.29 lakh people were vaccinated daily while 1.86 lakh registered for getting the vaccine every day. In the second week, between February 15 and 22, the average was 2.34 lakh and 2.46 lakh.

But in the third week, between February 23 and March 1, the daily average dropped to 1.54 lakh and 1.28 lakh.

"We observed that the response from the low-income people is very poor while it is not satisfactory among the middle-and-upper-class too," Mushtuq Hussain, member secretary of the Publicity and Communication Committee for Covid-19 vaccination campaign, told The Daily Star yesterday.

COVID-19 DAILY UPDATE

The positivity rate of Covid-19 has declined yesterday compared to the previous day.

Against a total of 15,325 tests conducted yesterday, the positivity rate was 3.36 percent, which was 4.31 percent the day before.

Seven more people died from Covid-19 in 24-hours ending at 8:00am yesterday, said another press release from the DGHS.

With the latest fatalities, the total number of deaths has reached 8,423. The death rate was 1.54 percent.

At least 515 new infections were recorded in the same 24-hour period, taking the total number of infected people in the country to 5,47,316.

At least 894 Covid-19 patients have recovered during the same period. The total number of recoveries now stands at 4,98,691 and the recovery rate is 90.98 percent.

Among the seven deceased, five were males.