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Holidaymakers urged not to return to Dhaka before 14 days

25 more die, 363 infected in 24hrs


FE REPORT | May 17, 2021 00:00:00


The government on Sunday called upon the Eid holidaymakers not to return to Dhaka before passing 14 days since their travelling to village homes.

Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) made the request as a strategy to prevent spread of coronavirus as the people started returning to the capital defying the restrictions on movement.

The government, meanwhile on the day, extended the so-called restrictions until May 23.

At a virtual briefing, DGHS spokesperson Dr Nazmul Islam said the government had urged all not to travel during this Eidvacation, but a huge number of people defied the directive.

"Those who are still remaining outside of Dhaka and if their offices are still closed should stay at their respective native homes at least for another seven to 14 days," he said.

He suggested people having Covid-19 symptoms to undergo RT-PCR tests at the nearest health complexes or district hospitals to reduce the risk of other people getting infected.

Besides, the DGHS official said: "The returnees from India are being kept under strict 14-day quarantine while five of the patients infected with the Indian variant of the Covid-19 are in sound health."

Till date, six samples have been found positive for the Indian variant of the virus in the country, he added.

In the meantime, the Cabinet Division in a notification on the day extended the lockdown restrictions for another week, considering the present state of the pandemic.

The government had imposed the lockdown on April 05 to prevent the second wave of coronavirus transmission.

Meanwhile, around 10.64 million mobile subscribers left Dhaka until May 15, according to a data released by post and telecommunication minister Mustafa Jabbar on Sunday.

Of them, only 412,763 subscribers returned to Dhaka until May 15.

However, twenty-five people died from Covid-19 and 363 more got infected afresh with the virus in Bangladesh during the last 24 hours until 8:0am on Sunday.

With the latest daily count, total fatalities from the coronavirus disease stood at 12,149 on the day, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

A total of 5,430 samples were tested, including antigen-based rapid tests, while 5,508 samples were collected across the country during the last 24-hour reporting time, said a DGHS press release.

The Covid-19 test positivity rate was reported at 6.69 per cent on Sunday.

A total of 601 people recovered from the coronavirus disease in the country during the said 24 hours.

The rate of recovery from the disease was reported at 92.55 per cent on the day, according to the DGHS.

The rate of fatalities from Covid-19 inched up to 1.56 per cent on the day against the previous day's 1.55 per cent, it added.

According to the official data, the total Covid-19 cases have so far reached 780,169 in Bangladesh and out of them 722,036 had recovered from the deadly disease.

On the other hand, nearly 5.71 million samples had been tested in the country since the virus was detected in the country in March last, the DGHS figures showed.

Meanwhile, a total of 48,930 people received the second dose of Covid-19 vaccine across the country on Sunday, out of whom 30,635 were men and 18,295 women.

The government administered nearly 9.52 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines -about 5.82 million first dose and around 3.70 million second dose-- across the country since the mass vaccination programme was launched in the country on February 7 last.

Nearly 7.25 million people got registered for receiving Covid-19 vaccine until 5:30 pm on April 16.

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