Country reports highest Covid-19 infection rate in 24 hours
Recovery rate among Covid-19 patients jumps to 50.93 percent, as the number of recoveries was more than double the number of fresh infections on Sunday
Bangladesh on Sunday confirmed 2,666 new cases of Covid-19 infections testing 11,059 samples in the last 24 hours till Sunday at 8 am.
During the period, the rate of infection against total tests stood at 24.11 percent -- the highest single-day infection rate since the maiden coronavirus cases were reported in the country on March 8 this year.
Out of the total infections of 183,795, at least 93,614 patients have so far recovered from the disease. Of them, 5,580 Covid-19 patients have recovered in the last 24 hours, which is more than double the number of newly infected cases.
The recovery rate now stands at 50.93 percent, said Professor Dr Nasima Sultana, additional director general of the Directorate General of Health Services, at the daily online bulletin on the Covid-19 situation on Sunday.
Meanwhile, 47 more people died from the novel coronavirus in the country in the last 24 hours, taking the death toll to 2,352 and the current death rate against the total infections is 1.27 percent.
The country entered the 19th week of Covid-19 outbreak on Sunday.
An analysis of the data provided by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) shows the infection rate was 22.40 percent in the 16th week when the number of tests was over 15,000.
The number of Covid-19 tests has dropped significantly in recent weeks after the government imposed fees on the tests from the beginning of July.
On July 3, the number of tests suddenly dropped to 14,650 and the figure has been in a declining trend since then.
The number of patients also dropped as the number of tests also dropped.
In the 18th week, the number of detection was 21,450, about 4,000 less than that in each of the 17th week and the 16th week.
The National Technical Advisory Committee on Covid-19 on Friday stressed the need for increasing the number of tests and their quality.
The committee thinks that more attention should be given to building the capacity of the testing facilities instead of increasing the number of labs.
Speeding up the Covid-19 testing processes was also recommended. The committee recommended collecting RT-PCR kits from multiple sources to avert any supply crunch. Besides, it advocated for collecting effective and low-cost testing kits.
Dr Nasima Sultana said among the dead patients on Sunday, 36 were men and 11 women. Of them, 23 were from Dhaka, six from Chattogram and Khulna each, four from each of Rajshahi and Sylhet, two from Barishal and Rangpur each.
"Among the total deceased of the day, 43 died in different hospitals and 4 died at their homes," she added. As of Sunday, 1,860 men and 492 women have died from Covid-19 in the country.
Nasima Sultana said, "The authorities placed 737 new individuals suspected of having Covid-19 into isolation, while 17,319 people are currently under isolation and 909 released on Sunday."