Covid positivity cases mark a rise by 115 percent: DGHS

Staff Reporter
The positive cases of Coronavirus have increased by 115 per cent in Bangladesh over the last one week compared to the previous week, says the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
“As many as 6,300 new Covid cases have been reported in one week which is 3,376 more than the pre-vious week,” DGHS Director Prof Nazmul Islam said in the regular DGHS briefing on Sunday.
During the period, he said, 23 Covid patients have died, which is 15 per cent higher than the previous week.
Nazmul Islam said the overall positivity rate in the last two months was below 2 per cent. But the posi-tivity rate has been increasing gradually over the last one week.
On January 2, as many as 557 Covid cases were reported and it stood at 1,116 on Saturday. At the be-ginning of January, the positivity rate was below 3 percent, he said.
However, today (Sunday) the positivity rate rose to 6.78 per cent, according to the DGHS.
Meanwhile, the Omicron-infected patients are doing well as no one of them has any complication and many of them returned home after recovery, according to the DGHS.
“So, there’s nothing to fear about Omicron,” Prof Nazmul said.
The Omicron variant has increased the number of patients in different countries. As a result, the pressure of patients is also increasing in the hospitals, he added.
“The number of patients is also increasing in the country, but we all can contain it, hopefully.”
Emphasizing the importance of raising public awareness, the DGHS Director said anyone infected by Covid-19, not only by Omicron, can seek timely medical assistance. “If you undergo treatment without hiding the information, it would be easy to fight it off.”
He also said much information about patients with Omicron cannot be shared for privacy concerns.
He said, “The way we’ve fought Coronavirus in Bangladesh in the last two years with everyone’s coop-eration, we’ll be able to continue the trend in the current year, too.”
Meanwhile, Bangladesh logged three more deaths and 1,491 new infections in 24 hours till Sunday morning.
Besides, Bangladesh’s total tally of Omicron cases remained static at 21 with detection of 11 cases on Friday, according to GISAID, a global initiative on sharing all influenza data.