Bangladesh reports 248 more deaths as Delta variant keeps lashing

Online Desk :

As the ruthless Delta variant keeps spreading like wildfire, Bangladesh added 248 fatalities to its national tally Friday, up from 212 logged a week earlier.

The country has been reporting over 200 single-day fatalities for the last two weeks as it races to head off a surge in Covid-19 cases driven by the unrelenting Delta variant.

After weathering the first wave of the virus, Bangladesh’s health services are now stretched dangerously thin.

The Covid-19 infections are on the upswing, with 13,771 – 95% of the peak – new cases reported on average each day.

Bangladesh recorded 12,606 new cases on Friday after testing 48,015 samples, down from 13,862 logged a week earlier on July 30.

The country reported the highest daily Covid-19 fatality of 264 on August 5 and 16,230 infections on July 28.

As more people are falling sick with Covid-19 and dying, hospitals in Dhaka and other cities are running out of beds.

There have been 1,335,260 infections and 22,150 coronavirus-related deaths here since the pandemic began, according to the Directorate General of Health Services.

Meanwhile, the daily test positivity rate fell to 26.25% from July 30’s 30.77%, while the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends a 5% or below rate.

However, the recovery rate rose to 87.81%, and the case fatality remained increased to 1.66% compared to the same period.

As the Delta variant continues to overtax the stretched hospitals, Chattogram division reported the highest 75 deaths, Dhaka 69, Khulna 36, Barishal 20, Rajshahi and Sylhet 16 each, Rangpur and Mymensingh eight each.

So far, Bangladesh has administered at least 14,733,314 doses of Covid vaccines – enough to have vaccinated around 4.3% of the country’s population, assuming every person needs two doses.