No lockdown right now

The government is not considering lockdown right now but has directed the health department to intensify awareness campaigns and ensure strict enforcement of health safety rules amid a rise in Covid-19 transmission.

Health officials will have to work to ensure physical distancing and reopen Covid-dedicated hospitals or units and isolation centres that were shut down earlier.

They will also make sure that these hospitals across the country are provided with necessary logistics, including personal protective gears, oxygen supply and medicines.

Besides, screening at all entry points to the country -- airports, seaports and land ports -- will be strengthened immediately. If any traveller is diagnosed with Covid, he or she will be put on quarantine.

The directives came yesterday at a meeting between high-ups of the Prime Minister's Office and the health department at the PMO. Ahmad Kaikaus, principal secretary to the prime minister, presided over the meeting attended by, among others, Health Secretary Abdul Mannan and Director General of the health directorate Prof ABM Khurshid Alam.

It was also decided at the meeting that all deputy commissioners will be instructed not to allow social events to avoid virus transmission and also make sure that everyone wears facemask in public places, said meeting sources.

Talking to reporters at the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) later, Khurshid said, "There is no government directive on lockdown. But everyone must maintain the health guidelines issued earlier to check Covid-19 transmission."

The DGHS has been asked to vigorously run campaigns on health guidelines, he mentioned.

The development comes at a time when both deaths and infections from the novel coronavirus are on the rise.

The DGHS reported that 26 Covid patients died yesterday, raising the total count to 8,597. Besides, the total number of confirmed cases stood at 560,887 yesterday with the detection of 1,719 new cases.

The number of daily Covid cases was below the 1,000-mark for a month till March 9, while daily deaths hovered around 10.

But from the second week of this month, deaths from Covid and also new cases continued to go up, resulting in an increased rush of patients in the Covid-dedicated as well as general hospitals in the capital and elsewhere.

Experts fear the alarming spike in transmission might be linked to the imported variants of the virus from the UK and South Africa, which were detected in the country in January through genome sequencing.

The number of patients with breathing difficulty -- one of the severe symptoms of Covid-19 -- has been on the rise in the city hospitals.

Talking to this newspaper, officials at three major hospitals in the capital said they were struggling to cope with the rising number of such patients for the last one week.

"We had received 30 patients a day in the previous week. But the number has risen to 60 this week," said Dr Khalilur Rahman, director at Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College and Hospital.

The worrying issue is that most of the patients are below 40, he told The Daily Star yesterday.

"In the past, most of the patients were above 50. But now we are seeing Covid patients who are younger. They are also developing severe illness rapidly," he added.

The 20-bed Covid unit at this hospital is grappling with rush of patients, he informed.

At Mugda Medical College and Hospital, the number of patients with breathing difficulties has doubled this week compared to that in the previous week.

"Around 70 patients with breathing difficulties got admitted to this hospital last week. The number has doubled this week," Asim Kumar Nath, director at the hospital, told this correspondent.

Dhaka Medical College and Hospital is also seeing a rise in admission of such patients.

"As per our observation, the number of such patients is increasing," DMCH Director Col Md Nazmul Haque told this newspaper without giving any statistics.