Covid-19: Single-day test positivity below 5% for 12th day

Bangladesh recorded 24 more deaths from Covid-19 and 589 new cases in the 24 hours between 8am Friday and 8am Saturday.

The number of cases is the lowest since May 16, when the country saw 363 cases.

Some 17,283 samples were tested at 821 labs across the nation in these 24 hours, yielding a positivity rate of 3.41%.

With this, the daily test positivity rate has stayed below 5% for 12 consecutive days, while the overall infection rate in the country stands at 15.93%.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), if the daily-case positivity rate remains at 5% or below for 14 days it is considered to be safe for mass unlocking.

The daily case positivity rate in Bangladesh reached its peak 32.55% on July 24 this year.

Between Friday and Saturday mornings, health authorities also reported that 741 patients also recovered from Covid-19 across the country.

Also Read - US sends over 8 million Covid vaccines to Bangladesh, Philippines

According to the latest data from the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), the country’s death toll from the disease now stands at 27,555, the total caseload at 1,557,347, and the total number of recoveries at 1,517,642.

The latest figures have put the overall recovery rate at 97.45% and the mortality rate at 1.77%.

The seven-day moving average of single-day deaths in Bangladesh was 23.14 on Saturday.

Dhaka counted 14 deaths, the highest among the division, followed by Chittagong with four fatalities.

Rangpur reported two deaths, while Khulna, Barisal, Mymensingh and Sylhet each registered one death.

Also Read - Covid-19 deaths hit 5 million as Delta variant sweeps the world

All 24 of them died at different hospitals across the country.

Of the new patients, Dhaka logged 380 cases, the highest among the divisions, followed by Chittagong with 113.

Around 33.32 million people in the country have received their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine. Of them, some 16.92 million have taken both doses, as DGHS data aggregated till Thursday show.

Bangladesh reported its first three cases of Covid-19, a severe acute respiratory illness caused by a strain of coronavirus later named Sars-CoV-2, on March 8 last year. The first death was reported 10 days later.

The fast-spreading virus has so far claimed over 4.8 million lives and infected more than 235.17 million people throughout the world, according to worldometer.

More than 211.92 million people have recovered from the disease, which has affected 221 countries and territories across the planet.