Covid 19: Hospitals to run out of beds in a week if infection rate continues to rise

The Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) has warned that available hospital beds in the country could run out in a week if the skyrocketing Covid-19 infection rate is not brought under control.

During the regular health bulletin yesterday, DGHS spokesperson Dr Robed Amin said that about 5,000 out of the 15,000 beds at dedicated Covid-19 hospitals across the country are currently unoccupied.

“If the upward trend in the infection rate continues, it will not be a surprise if the country starts recording more than 16,000 new infections each day. In that case, no beds will be available after a week,” he said.

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The number of available intensive care unit (ICU) beds halved from 200 to 100 over the past few days, and they too would all be occupied in seven days if the infection rate maintained its current trend, the DGHS spokesperson added.

Some 112,718 Covid-19 cases were recorded in June, but 96,000 cases have already been logged in the first 10 days of July, Dr Robed Amin further said, stressing the need for following health rules.

Bangladesh yesterday yet again recorded its highest number of deaths and infections in a single day. A total 230 people died from Covid-19 and 11,874 people tested positive for the coronavirus in the 24 hours till 8am, according to DGHS data.

With the latest development, the total number of deaths reached 15,419 while the total number of infections rose to 1,021,189 in the country.

Yesterday was the third time the country recorded more than 200 new deaths in the last five days, while it was the fifth time more than 11,000 new infections were logged in the last six days.

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The daily infection rate was 29.67%, with 40,015 samples tested at authorized labs across the country. 

Mass vaccination from tomorrow

Top DGHS officials yesterday said that they were prepared to fully resume the nationwide mass vaccination campaign by administering the Sinopharm vaccine from China at district- and upazila-level hospitals from the morning today.

The vaccination campaign had come to a halt on April 25 due to a shortage of vaccine doses in the country.

During the regular bulletin, DGHS Line Director and Vaccine Deployment Committee Member Secretary Shamsul Haque said that the vaccine campaign had already resumed in many areas where supplies of the Sinopharm vaccine had arrived.

Districts that had not received the jabs were geared to receive them on Sunday night, he added.

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He further said the DGHS had received 2.5 million doses of the Moderna vaccine and they would begin administering them at 40 centers outside Dhaka from Tuesday. The vaccine would only be administered at vaccination centers in city corporation areas due to issues with storage.

The Moderna vaccines were also set to be delivered to vaccine centers by Sunday night, according to the DGHS line director.

Expatriate workers are set to receive the Moderna vaccine once the stock of Pfizer vaccine, currently being administered at seven centers in Dhaka, runs out.

“The expatriate workers and the general people, who can get the Moderna vaccine in city corporation areas, do not have to come to Dhaka,” Shamsul Haque said.

He added that those who had received their first dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine would have to wait a few more days for the second dose.

"More Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines are likely to arrive this month or next month," he said.