People waiting to board buses in Gulistan area of the city amid a lack of transport, as the bus operators, in line with the government directive to stem the spread of coronavirus, started plying vehicles from Wednesday with 50 per cent passengers against the capacity — FE photo by Shafiqul Alam Covid-19 infections broke all previous records on Wednesday since the virus was detected in Bangladesh in March last year with authorities reporting 5358 new cases on the day.
Besides, the country's health authorities recorded over 5,000 fresh cases for the third straight day.
However, the number of fatalities from coronavirus also reached a fresh high of 52 in the country on the day after several months.
On the other hand, more than 5.3 million people have already been inoculated
With the latest daily count, the total fatalities from coronavirus reached at 9046 in Bangladesh on Wednesday, according to Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) data.
Both the numbers of fresh infections and deaths due to Covid-19 continued to swell up in the recent times.
The Covid-19 test positivity rate, which has also been registering an upward trend in the recent days, almost touched 20 per cent on Wednesday.
According to a DGHS press release, a total of 26,931 samples were tested while some 26671 samples were collected across the country during the last 24-hour reporting time.
A total of 2219 people recovered from the Covid-19 during the last 24-hour reporting time, the DGHS press release said.
The rate of recovery, however, inched down to 88.73 per cent on the day from the previous day's 89.15.
On the other hand, the rate of fatalities from Covid-19 remained almost static at 1.48 per cent in the country on the day.
Many buses in Dhaka were found defying a government order to run with half of their seating capacity on Wednesday although they were charging passengers a higher fare.
The buses rather operated with extra commuters.
The government on Tuesday asked all transport operators to run with 50 per cent of their seating capacity amid an uptrend in Covid-19 infection for weeks.
Accordingly, bus fare was also raised by 60 per cent in consensus with service providers for the next two weeks.
The state rail service already started selling half tickets than the capacity of a train while launch service was yet to comply with the new rule.
It has decided to stop ticket sales after April 11.
Commuters looked sad in the morning for a lack of adequate vehicles to go to offices and workstations.
Many were also concerned about a hike in bus fare, although many buses were taking extra passengers.
However, Khaja Paribahan, a private service that plies between Mirpur-12 and Gulistan, was seen taking extra passengers despite a fare hike of Tk 40 per ticket from Tk 25 earlier.
Md Shajahan, the bus conductor, said some passengers got aboard forcefully at Taltota stand amid a shortage of buses.
"But there is no standing passengers today (Wednesday)," he told the FE.
The popular Banani-Motijheel-bound bus number-06 was also seen with extra passengers.
Many passengers were seen without masks inside.
As per the new health advisory, one person is allowed for a seat used for two in normal time and no passenger is allowed without a mask.
However, buses with standing passengers were rare on Wednesday.
Bangladesh Road Transport Owners' Association secretary general Khandaker Enayet Ullah said all city and inter-city buses were told to comply with the new health guideline and fare structure.
Conductors and drivers have been instructed to avoid passengers without masks and keep sanitisers.
Mr Enayet also urged passengers to cooperate with bus operators in following the health protocol.
Inter-city bus companies also started selling tickets in compliance with the new instruction.
Anisur Rahman, an official at Hanif Paribahan, said they were in difficulty dealing with passengers for the weekend on Thursday as they bought tickets two to three days earlier.
He said most operators could maintain it fully from Friday.
Meanwhile, most of the launch passengers at Sadarghat terminal were found defying the health-safety guideline while travelling on different routes on the day.
Most launches were operating at their full capacity.
Visiting the terminal in the afternoon, the FE found passengers sitting on decks without maintaining minimum distance from each other, let alone wearing masks.
When asked, passengers said they paid regular fares.
Talking to the FF, Bangladesh Inland Waterways (Passenger Carriers) Association president Mahbub Uddin Ahmed said they asked all launch operators to ensure health-safety guideline during service.
"We've asked owners to strictly follow the health-safety guideline during service."
Mr Ahmed said launch operators did not realise extra fares from passengers on Wednesday.
He, however, said they would enforce the government directives to carrying 50-per cent passengers against normal capacity of each launch from Thursday.
Meanwhile, an inter-ministerial meeting on Wednesday discussed the hiked fares of launch services on different routes and strict enforcement of the health guideline during the ongoing pandemic.
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