The worst of the Covid-19 pandemic seems to be far from over. The overall number of global corona cases has now surged past 132 million, while the death toll is fast nearing 3 million.
According to Johns Hopkins University (JHU), the total case count reached 132,300,599 while the death toll from the virus mounted to 2,871,781 on Wednesday morning, reports UNB.
The US has so far recorded 30,845,912 cases and 556,509 deaths, as per the university data.
In the US, nearly half of new coronavirus infections are in just five states -- a situation that is putting pressure on the federal government to consider changing how it distributes vaccines by sending more doses to hotspots, reports AP.
New York, Michigan, Florida, Pennsylvania and New Jersey together reported 44% of the nation’s new Covid-19 infections, or nearly 197,500 new cases, in the latest available seven-day period, according to the state health agency data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Total US infections during the same week numbered more than 452,000.
Brazil on Tuesday registered a record 4,195 deaths from Covid in a single day, taking the accumulated pandemic toll to 336,947, the Ministry of Health said.
Meanwhile, 86,979 people tested positive on Tuesday, pushing the national tally to around 13,100,580.
Neighbouring India has recorded 12,686,049 cases and 165,547 deaths as of Wednesday morning, according to the data.
Situation in Bangladesh
Bangladesh witnessed record-breaking daily Covid-19 fatalities and infections, with 66 deaths and 7,213 cases in 24 hours till Tuesday morning.
More than 7,000 new coronavirus cases were recorded for the third consecutive day on Tuesday, according to a handout issued by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
With the 66 new deaths, the coronavirus fatalities rose to 9,384 while the mortality rate dropped slightly to 1.44 percent as it was 1.45 percent on Monday.
During the 24-hour period, 2,969 patients recovered, taking the number of recoveries to 558,383, the DGHS handout said.
Although the government enforced a 7-day lockdown from Monday restricting people’s movement, shutting shops and markets and suspending operations of public transport (bus, train and domestic flights), people have been moving around freely, posing risks of more transmission.
Bangladesh has so far recorded 651,652 coronavirus cases, the DGHS handout added.
Bangladesh reported its first cases on March 8 last year and confirmed the first death from the virus 10 days later.
Vaccination drive
The government launched a countrywide vaccination campaign on February 7 with doses received from the Serum Institute of India.
Bangladesh inked an agreement with Serum in December last year for acquiring 30 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. Serum is supposed to supply the doses between January and June this year – 5 million each month.
Second dose of vaccine
The vaccination drive of the coronavirus second doses will begin from April 8 (Thursday), said Health Services Division Secretary Lokman Hossain on Tuesday.
“Though the vaccination campaign of the first doses was supposed to be concluded on Tuesday, the registration process for taking the first doses is still underway,” he said.