Bangladesh registered 10 more deaths in 24 hours from Covid-19 till 8am Monday. The total number of deaths has reached to 28,154 with the latest figure.
The country recorded 6,676 new infections in the meantime taking the total number of people infected to 1,624,387, according to a press release issued by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) on Monday.
The current positivity rate stands 20.88 percent and the overall positivity rate stands at 13.66 percent.
In addition, the death rate now stands at 1.73 percent in the country, added the release.
Among the 10 deceased, four were males and six were females. Of them, seven were from Dhaka, two from Chattogram and one was from Barisal division.
A total of 31,980 samples were tested across the country till 8am Monday.
Some 427 Covid-19 patients have recovered during this period. A total of 1,553,320 people have recovered from the virus so far and the recovery rate stands at 95.62 percent.
As of Monday, 5,559,032 people died of Covid-19 across the world and 329,009,218 have been infected so far, according to Worldometer.
Health and Family Welfare Minister Zahid Maleque has said that if the infection continues to grow at this rate, it will be difficult for hospitals to provide space for all the patients in the next one-and-a-half months.
He made the remarks while talking to reporters at the Secretariat on Monday.
Citing a survey, the minister said that a survey was conducted in Dhaka with Omicron. It has been observed that Omicron has spread 69 pc in Dhaka so far i.e. 69 pc of all cases in Dhaka are of the Omicron variant. Speedy spread of this new variant in and outside Dhaka city is also feared.
“The Omicron and Delta variants are growing by leaps and bounds in the country. We are a little worried and concerned about this matter. We do not want so many people to be infected. However, in the last 15-20 days the infection rate has increased to 18 pc,” said the minister.
Zahid Maleque said that last time when the Delta variant was prevalent, the infection rate was up around 30 pc for a whole month. The way it is growing now, it could pose a similar threat with researching similar numbers. The number of newly infected was around 5,200 on Sunday.
"The number of hospital admissions has increased as well. Around 200 patients are getting hospitalised every day. In this situation, I am requesting the people to follow the health guidelines. If they follow the hygiene rules, wear masks, maintain social distancing, only then can this infection be dealt with,” said the minister.