Situation worsens as guidelines ignored

COVID-19 situation has worsened again in Bangladesh as the test positivity rate and the number of cases are rising every day while global coronavirus toll has reached 26,00,802.

On Tuesday the number of cases jumped to 912, which was the highest in nearly two months after January 10, the day the Directorate General of Health Services detected 1,071 cases.

The test positivity rate on the day was 5.13 per cent, which was also the highest in 50 days. From January 18, the rate did not cross 5 per cent before Tuesday. 

The country is now in the 53rd week of its COVID-19 outbreak.

The positivity rate was below 3 per cent in the 49th, 50th and 51st weeks in a row, but it rose to above 3 per cent in the 52nd week and is rising in the current 53rd week.

While the positivity rate was above 4 per cent in the four days until Monday it  went above 5 per cent on Tuesday.

The number of COVID-19 cases and the test positivity rate on Monday were 845 cases and 4.98 per cent respectively.

Experts feared that the COVID-19 situation might deteriorate further.

Virologist Nazrul Islam said that a second wave might materialise in days ahead.

People ignoring the health practices, including wearing masks and avoiding crowding, have in the meantime become so evident that prime minister Sheikh Hasina on Tuesday once again asked all concerned to ensure the mandatory use of masks and maintaining social distancing as a second wave of coronavirus infections was feared.

Presiding over the weekly cabinet meeting virtually from her official residence Ganabhaban, she said that all should compulsorily use masks whether they had been vaccinated against COVID-19 or not in the wake of fresh rises in the number of COVID-19 deaths and cases.

The enforcement of mask use and measures against gathering has, however, become non-existent in recent days.

Shopping malls, public transports, kitchen markets, factories, offices and tourist spots are seen crowded with people without wearing masks with no visible actions from authorities.

Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research principal scientific officer ASM Alamgir said that it was an unpleasant development that the test positivity rate and the number of cases were going up.

‘We should meticulously follow the health rules like wearing masks, washing hands and avoiding crowd if we want to break the chain of coronavirus infections,’ he told New Age.

According to DGHS statistics, 17,775 samples were tested across the country in the 24-hour period ending at 8:00am Tuesday and 5.13 per cent or 912 of them were found COVID-19 positive.

With the new cases, the country has so far recorded 5,52,087 cases.

In the period, 13 more people died of COVID-19, taking the death toll to 8,489.

The health agency in its daily vaccination update disclosed that 1,07,463 more people were inoculated on Tuesday across the country, totalling the number of vaccinated people 40,13,963.

Bangladesh began its mass COVID-19 vaccination on February 7 using the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.

Agence France-presse adds: The novel coronavirus has killed at least 26,00,802 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 1100 GMT on Tuesday.

At least 11,70,63,380 cases of coronavirus have been registered. The vast majority have recovered, though some have continued to experience symptoms weeks or even months later.

On Monday, 6,498 new deaths and 2,99,273 new cases were recorded worldwide.

Based on latest reports, the countries with the most new deaths were Brazil with 987, followed by the United States with 749 and France with 359.

The United States is the worst-affected country with 5,25,816 deaths from 2,90,45,448 cases.

After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 2,66,398 deaths from 1,10,51,665 cases, Mexico with 1,90,923 deaths from 21,30,477 cases, India with 1,57,930 deaths from 1,12,44,786 cases, and the United Kingdom with 1,24,566 deaths from 42,23,232 cases.

Europe overall has 8,78,311 deaths from 3,88,09,591 cases, Latin America and the Caribbean 7,00,441 deaths from 2,21,46,374 infections, and the United States and Canada 5,48,074 deaths from 2,99,34,008 cases.

Asia has reported 2,60,291 deaths from 1,64,08,214 cases, the Middle East 1,06,668 deaths from 57,56,502 cases, Africa 1,06,064 deaths from 39,75,834 cases, and Oceania 953 deaths from 32,862 cases.

China has launched a system of so-called ‘virus passports’ to kickstart international travel, as Russia sealed its first deal on Tuesday to manufacture the Sputnik V jab in the European Union.

Other nations like Brazil and Mexico are still struggling to get the pandemic under control, although there was a glimmer of hope from the OECD as it raised global economic growth forecasts for this year.

Chinese citizens can download the new certificates and use them to enter and leave the country, with the foreign ministry saying the system was intended ‘to help promote world economic recovery and facilitate cross-border travel’.

It is being hailed as the world’s first virus passport — with similar schemes under discussion in the United States and the EU.

However, the Chinese scheme is not mandatory and, as it is only available for Chinese citizens, it is not yet clear how it could work internationally.

China is one of many countries struggling to get vaccinations up to a level that would allow a return to normal life, with just 3.65 per cent of its population covered so far.

The EU’s slow rollout has been widely criticised but officials have promised that more than 100 million jabs will enter the bloc each month from April.

The EU was given a further potential boost on Tuesday, with an announcement that the Sputnik V jab would be produced in Italy.

‘Ten million doses will be produced between July 1 and January 1, 2022,’ Stefano Maggi of the Italian-Russian Chamber of Commerce said.

The jab has been a major source of pride for Russia with doses being transported across the world, including to several EU countries despite it not yet being approved by the bloc’s medicines regulator.

But its relentless march has not pleased everyone, with a row erupting after an EU official compared its emergency use to playing ‘Russian roulette’ — sparking a demand from the vaccine’s makers for a public apology.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, more than 700,000 people have now lost their lives with Brazil and Mexico accounting for the lion’s share of deaths.

Daily death tolls continue to rise in both Brazil and Mexico and neither nation has made significant inroads with vaccines.

In some countries, the battle to get jabs into arms continues to be undermined by a deluge of disinformation online.

Fake stories have overwhelmed social media in the Czech Republic — from videos explaining how vaccines can ‘change your DNA’ to panic-inducing stories of seniors dying en masse after receiving the jab.

By one estimate, Czechs were exposed to lies about the Pfizer vaccine 25 times more than US internet users.

‘For years, fake news here was dominated by immigration, because it had the potential to scare people,’ Bohumil Kartous, a spokesman for a network that aims to battle disinformation, said.

The Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development says it now expects the global economy to grow by 5.6 per cent, an increase of 1.4 points from its December forecast.

The recovery cannot come soon enough for those who have lost their jobs and livelihoods in the pandemic.

Deprivation has expanded rapidly in Italy with more than one million added to the number officially living in poverty, pushing it up to the highest level in 15 years.

Even in Milan, one of Europe’s wealthiest cities, hundreds queue up every day at two distribution centres to get charity food parcels.

‘I’m ashamed to be here. But otherwise I would have nothing to eat,’ 60-year-old Giovanni Altieri said, adding that he used to work in a nightclub but it had been shut under virus regulations.

‘I like the contact with people, I had a good salary, but I’m at rock bottom here. I have no income and live off my savings.’

News Courtesy:

https://www.newagebd.net/article/132265/situation-worsens-as-guidelines-ignored