Bangladesh on Sunday registered its highest single-day increase in coronavirus fatalities with 42 deaths, while the total number of cases crossed the 65,000-mark with 2,743 more patients, a media report said.
According to the health directorate, the total number of positive COVID-19 cases increased by 2,743 to reach 65,769 in the country, bdnews24.com reported.
Additional Director General in the Directorate General of Health Services Nasima Sultana told a media briefing that 13,903 people have so far recovered from the deadly contagion, including 578 patients in the last 24 hours.
Meanwhile, the government has drafted a new lockdown strategy, mapping the country into red, yellow and green zones to contain the coronavirus pandemic, Dhaka Tribune newspaper reported.
A virtual inter-ministerial meeting to finalize the draft and Standard Operating Procedures (SoP) for Dhaka corporations and districts was held on Saturday.
Initially, the plan will be piloted at a ward each of five corporations that are COVID-19 hotspots and in Narsingdi district. Later, it will be implemented across the country, according to the report.
Health Ministry Additional Secretary Habibur Rahman Khan said that the zonal lockdown will initially be implemented on an experimental basis.
The report said that areas with the highest number of coronavirus cases will be marked as red zones, those with limited number of cases as yellow and green zones will be areas with zero cases in the last 21 days. Strict restrictions will be put in place in red zones.
According to the draft plan, a zone will be designated as red if there are over 40 coronavirus patients for every 100,000 people. If there are no more than five positive or active cases, then it will be a green zone, and above five and below 40 will be designated as yellow.
Recently, Bangladesh reported its first coronavirus death among the Rohingya refugees amid growing concern from the international rights groups on the high transmission rate in the packed camps which house over a million displaced people from Myanmar.
International rights groups have warned of a potential outbreak if the virus reaches the camps. The camps in Cox's Bazar are the most populous. The camps were shut down after Bangladesh reported its first coronavirus case on March 11.
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