Covid transmission declining

With Covid-19 transmission rates declining -- yesterday's daily positivity rate of 4.12 percent marked the seventh consecutive day of sub-five percent infection rates -- Bangladesh has ranked 39th among 53 countries in Bloomberg's Covid Resilience Ranking for September.

In the 24 hours preceding 8:00am yesterday, the Directorate General of Health Services reported 17 deaths -- the lowest number since May 26 this year, when there were also 17 fatalities from Covid.

Bangladesh is ahead of India and Pakistan in the Bloomberg rankings published on Tuesday.

The country has moved up five places from its August ranking of 44 as it recorded its lowest number of average daily deaths in nearly four months and schools reopened after being shut for more than 500 days, according to the Bloomberg report.

The Covid Resilience Ranking is a monthly snapshot of where the virus is being handled the most effectively with the least social and economic upheaval.

Compiled using 12 data indicators -- including containment, quality of healthcare, vaccination coverage, overall mortality and progress toward restarting travel and easing border curbs -- the ranking depicts how the world's 53 biggest economies are responding best to the once-in-a-generation threat.

In the 24 hours, the DGHS reported 1,178 new Covid cases out of 28,599 samples tested countrywide.

DGHS officials, meanwhile, said transmission of novel coronavirus has been showing a downward trend throughout September.

"We have been observing for the past month that the Covid-19 transmission trend, which was increasing earlier, is declining," Dr Nazmul Islam, spokesperson and a line director of the DGHS, said in an online briefing yesterday.

The 17 deaths recorded yesterday -- 10 male and seven female -- bring the overall number of Covid deaths in the country to 27,487, around 1.77 percent of all confirmed cases.

Meanwhile, the total number of confirmed cases rose to 15,55,051, since the first three cases were reported on March 8 last year.

Since early August, the positivity rate has been on the decline following spikes in deaths and infections in the wake of the countrywide spread of the more contagious Delta variant throughout June and July.

According to the World Health Organization, a positivity rate of below five percent for two weeks in a row indicates that transmission is under control.