Citizen Times Desk: Dhaka, Jul-22,
The global Covid-19 caseload is inching closer to the 192-million mark, as the second wave of the pandemic continues to devastate countries across the world even with mass inoculations underway.
The total caseload and fatalities stand at 191,951,455 and 4,126,444, respectively, as of Thursday morning, according to Johns Hopkins University (JHU).
So far, 3,713,024,686 vaccine doses have been administered across the globe.
The US, which is the world's worst-hit country in terms of both cases and deaths, has so far logged 34,226,776 cases. Besides, 609,861 people have lost their lives in the US to date, as per the JHU data.
Brazil has registered 1,424 more Covid-19 deaths in the past 24 hours, raising its national death toll to 544,180, the health ministry said Tuesday.
As many as 27,592 new cases were detected during the period, taking the total caseload to 19,419,437, the ministry said.
Brazil currently has the world's second-highest pandemic death toll after the United States and the third-largest caseload after the United States and India.
The third worst-hit country, India's Covid-19 tally rose to 31,216,337 on Wednesday as 42,015 new cases were registered during the past 24 hours across the country, as per the federal health ministry's corona data.
Besides, as many as 3,998 deaths due to the pandemic since Tuesday morning took the total death toll to 418,480.
According to AP, India’s excess deaths during the pandemic could be a staggering 10 times the official Covid-19 toll, likely making it modern India’s worst human tragedy, according to the most comprehensive research yet on the ravages of the virus in the South Asian country.
The report released Tuesday estimated excess deaths — the gap between those recorded and those that would have been expected — to be 3 million to 4.7 million between January 2020 and June 2021. It said an accurate figure may “prove elusive” but the true death toll “is likely to be an order of magnitude greater than the official count.”
The report was published by Arvind Subramanian, the Indian government’s former chief economic adviser, and two other researchers at the Center for Global Development, a nonprofit think tank based in Washington, and Harvard University.
Situation in Bangladesh
Marking another grim Eid under the shadow of the pandemic and amid growing concerns about the highly infectious delta variant, Bangladesh saw 173 more Covid-19 deaths Wednesday.
Also, Covid-19 infections in Bangladesh have reached 97% of the peak, with 11,533 new cases reported on an average each day. The highest daily average was recorded on July 15.
The country recorded 7,614 new infections in 24 hours till Wednesday morning after testing 24,979 samples.
Bangladesh reported its highest daily Covid-19 fatality number – 231 – on July 19 and 13,768 infections on the 12th of the month. Wednesday's death counts are the lowest in 14 days and the cases lowest in 18 days.
The country is in the grip of a second wave of the virus that is threatening to overwhelm its health service. There have been 1,136,503 infections and 18,498 coronavirus-related deaths in Bangladesh since the pandemic began, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
Meanwhile, the daily test positivity rate rose to 30.48% from Tuesday's 29.31%.
As the death rate stood at 1.63%, Dhaka division reported the highest 58 deaths, Khulna 38, Chattogram 32, Rangpur 16, Rajshahi 11, Barishal eight, Sylhet six, and Mymensingh four.
However, the recovery rate increased to 84.56%.
