Per million infection rate hits new highs

NEWS DESK

The rate of novel coronavirus infection for every million people continues to climb as the country is now in the midst most critical phase of the Covid-19 outbreak, officials and physicians said.

According to the Directorate General of Health Services or DGHS, the infection rate per million population was just 40.39 on April 28 last, but since then it kept rising and recorded a phenomenal increase during the past one week.

Even a week ago, the daily infection rate per million people hovered between 90 and 100, which jumped to 139 on Saturday, according to the official data.

The data have also showed that the rate of infection among the samples tested in Bangladesh is high compared with that of other countries in South Asia.

Almost 13 per cent of the samples were tested positive, which is the second-highest in the region, just behind Afghanistan (29 per cent) as of May 17, 2020.

The infection rates found in samples tested were 10.75 per cent in Pakistan, 9.15 per cent in the Maldives, 4.09 per cent in India, 2.23 per cent in Sri Lanka, 0.3 per cent in Nepal and 0.15 per cent in Bhutan.

Sounding an alarm bell over the quick rise in the number of infections and deaths, healthcare professionals called upon all to stay at home and practice social distancing properly to prevent the spread of the pandemic.

Expressing concern over easing movement restrictions during this critical time, they said that it could further deteriorate the situation in the country.

Additional director general (administration) of the DGHS Prof Dr Nasima Sultana on Sunday's online news conference said that a total of 8,114 samples have been tested in 42 labs across the country since Saturday morning.

Of the tests, some 1,273 samples came back COVID-19 positive, including 14 more deaths across the country in the last 24 hours, she said.

"With the latest number, the overall tally of confirmed cases and deaths rose to 22,268 and 328 respectively," she said.

Dr Sultana said 13 of the deceased were male. Nine deaths were reported from Dhaka division and five from Chattogram division.

Of the deceased, one was aged between 11-20 years, one between 31-40, two 41-50, three around 51-60, three 61-70, three others 71-80, and one 80-90 years old, she added.

During the same period, the DGHS official said, a total of 256 patients of Covid-19 made their recovery in the country. With that, the total number of recovered patients stood at 4,373 until yesterday.

In terms of quarantine, she said a total of 3,634 more people were kept in both home and institutional quarantine while 2,358 others were released from the quarantine facilities during the period.

"Currently, 49,417 people are in quarantine and 3,248 others are in isolation," the DGHS official informed.

Expressing concern over fast-growing infection and death rates, BSMMU associate professor (respiratory medicine) Dr. Shamim Ahmed said there is no alternative to staying indoors.

"Just see the recent data... how things are deteriorating. I think we're moving towards a massive disaster if we are not following the required health guidelines right now," he warned.

Mr Ahmed said some countries experienced corona-related worst scenario after 100 deaths while some others after 200 deaths.

"Look at our statistics, we registered 200 deaths in 62 days of the infections here. In the next seven days, we counted more than 100 deaths. What does it indicate?" he questioned.

He was suggesting strict enforcement of lockdown and social distancing to prevent the pandemic from spreading.

Globally, more than 4.7 million people were infected by the novel coronavirus and 313,738 died until Sunday 6:30 pm, according to Worldometer info on the virus.