Bangladesh today reported 12,148 COVID-19 cases while the coronavirus claimed overnight 187 lives.

“A total of 12,148 new cases were confirmed in the last 24 hours while 187 people died of COVID-19 during the period,” Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) said in its routine daily statement.

The official tally showed the virus infected 10,71,778 so far while the daily infection continued to exceed 10,000 mark for several days since on July 6.

A total of 187 COVID-19 patients died in the last 24 hours increasing the death toll from the pandemic to 17,465.

It said 28.96 percent of the 41,947 samples collected in 24 hours were tested positive while the infection rate was only 2.30 percent just on February 8 this year as during the late winter season, the rate started decreasing sharply.

The recovery count rose to 9,14,343 after another 8,536 patients were discharged from the hospitals during the past one day.

The DGHS statistics showed of the people infected from the beginning, 84.36 percent recovered, while 1.61 percent died.

In the past 24 hours, combined figure of coronavirus of Dhaka city and upazilas of Dhaka district is 3,337 while as of today, 5,73,484 out of 10,83,922 were detected alone in Dhaka district including the city.

The DGHS said among the total 17,465 fatalities, 8,451 deaths occurred in Dhaka division, 3,184 in Chattogram, 1,350 in Rajshahi, 2,099 in Khulna, 520 in Barishal, 618 in Sylhet, 818 in Rangpur and 425 in Mymensingh division.

The DGHS said Bangladesh’s COVID-19 confirmed cases crossed 5,000 mark on March 29, 2021, 6,000 mark on April 1, 202, 7,000 mark on April 4, 2021, 8,000 mark on June 24, 2021, 9,000 mark on July 5 and 11,000 mark on July 6.

According to month-wise statistics last year, 51 COVID-19 positive cases were detected in March 2020, 7616 in April, 39,486 in May, 98,330 in June, 92,178 in July, 75,335 in August, 50,483 in September, 44, 205 in October, 57,248 in November and 48,578 in December.

The beginning of the current year witnessed a drastic fall of coronavirus cases in the country but the trend lasted for only two months — 21,629 cases were detected in January and 11,077 in February.

After the drastic fall of COVID-19 confirmed cases, the country witnessed sharp increase of infection as 65,079 cases were reported in March, 2021 and 1,47,837 cases in April. The country again witnessed a fall in May, 2021 as it recorded 41,408 cases. From the beginning of June, 2021, the country recorded a sharp rise with 1,12,718 cases, the DGHS said.

According to month-wise statistics last year, five COVID-19 deaths were reported in March, 2020, 163 in April, 482 in May, 1,197 in June, 1,264 in July, 1,179 in August, 970 in September, 672 in October, 721 in November and 915 in December.

Month-wise data of the current year, 568 coronavirus fatalities were recorded in January, 2021, 281 in February, 638 in March and 2,404 in April, 1,169 in May and 1,884 in June, the DGHS sources said.

To receive information and treatment facilities on COVID-19, the contact hotline and mobile numbers are 16263; 333; 10655 and 01944333222.

As of July 16, 2021, 11.46 GMT, 4,085,912 people have died so far from the COVID-19 outbreak and there are currently 189,888,496 confirmed cases in 212 countries and territories, according to Worldometer, a reference website that provides counters and real-time statistics for diverse topics.

China was the world’s first country which on January 11, 2020 reported the first death from the novel coronavirus in Wuhan, the capital of Central China’s Hubei province. bss