4 die of Covid-19 every hour in Bangladesh

The daily number of Covid deaths hit a fresh record of 102 in the 24 hours until 8:00am on Sunday as the fresh wave of coronavirus infections has become more deadly.

The new deaths took the overall death count to 10,385, with almost four Covid patients dying every hour over the past seven days.

This is the third day in a row the daily death number crossed the 100-mark.

The Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research in a new report revealed that nearly half of the Covid patients died between January 28 and April 15 died in less than five days of hospitalisation.

‘The second wave of the outbreak so far seemed severe compared with the first wave by many counts,’ IEDCR director Professor Tahmina Shirin told New Age.

As high as 44 per cent of the people who contracted Covid-19 between late January and mid-April required hospitalisation whereas the maximum usual rate of hospitalisation among Covid patients is 20 per cent, she said.

In the first half of April, 941 people died, 32.2 per cent higher than the number of 638 people who had died of the disease in March.

The IEDCR report said that each of the first 15 days of April saw 50 per cent more Covid deaths compared with the highest single-day deaths counted in the past year.

In 2020, the highest number of 64 people died on June 30.

‘The transmission cycle of the coronavirus must be broken in order to stop the procession of deaths,’ said disease control director Nazmul Islam at a virtual press briefing of the Directorate General of Health Services on Sunday.

He urged people to follow restrictions on movement and business to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

The directorate’s daily update also confirmed 3,698 new cases after testing 19,404 samples in the 24 hours until 8:00am.

The overall Covid caseload reached 7,18,950 on Sunday with 93,629 active cases.  

The daily infection rate on Sunday was 19.06, which is slightly lower compared with the previous two days.

The daily number of tests also halved compared with the last couple of days, according to the directorate.

The fresh wave of the Covid outbreak began in early March when daily infections abnormally spiked.

In January, the monthly number of infections was 21,629 which fell to 11,077 in February.

But the number of cases jumped to 65,000 in March and crossed the mark of 1 lakh in April, according to the health directorate.

The sudden increase in daily infections put people under so much pressure that it is taking a toll on people’s mental health.

The IEDCR report, referring to several studies conducted during the pandemic, said that 46 per cent of the studied people showed signs of depression while 36 per cent suffered anxiety.

In 2018, the presence of depression was found among 18.7 per cent adult, said the IEDCR report.

In 2020, the number of people committed suicide was about 14,000, which is greater than the previous year, with at least five of the suicide were directly linked to Covid-19, said the IEDCR.

Women are dying more during the 2nd wave of the pandemic, said the IEDCR.

In July 2020, the men-women ratio of Covid deaths was 226/982, which became 263/614 in April this year, said the IEDCR.

Some 43 of the Covid victims between Saturday and Sunday were women, showed the daily health directorate bulletin.

Covid-19 has so far claimed the lives of 7,694 men and 2,691 women.

Of the deceased in the 14 hours, 63 people were aged above 60 while 23 people were from the age bracket of 51 and 60 and 14 from the age bracket of 41 and 50.

Two people aged between 31 and 40 also died in the 24 hours until Sunday morning.

Of the deceased, 68 died in Dhaka, 22 in Chattogram, four each in Barishal and Mymensingh, three in Rajshahi and one in Khulna.

A total of 6,121 people recovered in the 24 hours, said the government bulletin.

News Courtesy:

https://www.newagebd.net/article/135702/4-die-of-covid-19-every-hour-in-bangladesh