40 more die, highest in 12 weeks

The country yesterday reported 40 deaths due to Covid-19 -- the highest for a single day in more than 12 weeks.

Besides, 1,877 people died from Covid-19 in 24 hours till 8:00am yesterday, according to a DGHS press release.

Earlier, the 21st day of September saw the same number of deaths due to novel coronavirus infection. After that, the number of daily deaths continued to go down and remained stagnant around 20 till mid-November. The daily death cases, however, started to rise again since then [last one month] and was stagnant around 35.

With yesterday's count, the highly transmissible virus claimed 7,129 lives in the country which is 1.44 percent against the total number of confirmed cases so far.

Dr Mushtuq Hussain, consultant of the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR), told The Daily Star that "death cases usually rise three weeks after the infection rises. Maybe, today's [yesterday] figure is a beginning as the infection was high in the past several weeks. We are observing a rising trend in the daily death cases over the last few weeks."

Over the past two months, the number of daily cases has also increased.

Covid-19 cases rose by 33.49 percent in the last month compared to the number recorded in October.

With the latest, the total number of confirmed cases rose to 4,94,209.

Against a total of 19,054 tests in the last 24 hours till 8:00am yesterday, the positivity rate was 9.85 percent, while the overall positivity rate stands at 16.44 percent.

In the same period, a total of 2,884 Covid-19 patients have recovered from their illnesses, according to the press release.

With this, the total number of recoveries rose to 4,26,729 and the recovery rate at 86.35 percent.

Among yesterday's deceased, 26 were males and 14 were females.

Two of them were aged between 31 and 40 years, three between 41 and 50, seven between 51 and 60, and 28 were above 60 years, added the release.