Bangladesh reports Covid infection rate drops below 5% for the first time in over six months

26 deaths, 1,562 new cases reported in 24 hours

The single-day Covid-19 infection rate in Bangladesh dropped below 5% for the first time in over six months as the health authorities reported 4.69% infection rate on Tuesday.

The country’s daily infection rate stood at 4.98% on March 8. On March 7, it was 4.3%.

The gradual drop in the infection rate below 5% indicates that the country’s coronavirus situation is improving, according to health experts.

The health authorities reported 26 fresh fatalities from Covid-19 while the caseload jumped by 1,562 in the 24 hours to 8am on Tuesday.

During the same period, 1,603 more patients recovered from the disease, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

The latest additions took the country’s death toll to 27,277, the total caseload to 1,545,800 and the total number of recoveries to 1,504,709.

As many as 33,327 samples were tested across the country in 24-hour period. Till now, a total of 9,4 million tests were conducted across the country, yielding an overall test positivity of 16.27%.

The seven-day moving average of single-day deaths in Bangladesh stood at 38.5 on Tuesday.

Dhaka counted 15 deaths, the highest among the eight divisions, followed by Chittagong and Rajshahi with three fatalities each.

Sylhet and Khulna reported three deaths each while Mymensingh reported one death.

Of the new patients, Dhaka logged 1,032 cases, the highest among the divisions, followed by Chittagong with 203.
Meanwhile, the latest figures have put the recovery rate at 97.34% and the mortality rate at 1.76%.

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 coronavirus has so far claimed over 4.71 million lives and infected more than 229 million people throughout the world till Tuesday afternoon, according to Worldometer.

More than 206 million people have recovered from the disease, which has affected 222 countries and territories across the planet.