News Desk: Dhaka, Sept-11,

The global Covid-19 caseload is fast approaching another grim milestone of 224 million, with the world still struggling to contain the second wave of the pandemic.

The total caseload and fatalities from the virus stand at 223,798,048 and 4,616,196, respectively, as of Saturday morning, according to Johns Hopkins University (JHU).

So far, 5,640,209,397 Covid vaccine doses have been administered across the globe.

The US has logged 40,859,189 cases and 658,964 deaths to date, according to the JHU data.

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 country has recorded 20,974,850 cases with 585,846 fatalities so far, according to its health ministry.

India's Covid-19 tally rose to 33,174,954 on Friday, as 34,973 new cases were registered in 24 hours across the country, according to the federal health ministry data.

Besides, as many as 260 new deaths due to the pandemic since Thursday morning took the total death toll to 4, 42,009.

Situation in Bangladesh

Bangladesh logged 38 more Covid-19 deaths and 2,325 cases in 24 hours till Friday morning, showing a further decline in single-day fatalities and cases.

The country reported 58 Covid-related deaths and 2,588 cases on Thursday, indicating a slight increase in both cases and fatalities.

But the daily case positivity rate dropped a bit to 8.65  percent from Thursday’s 8.76 percent suggesting that the pandemic may be easing in Bangladesh.

The fresh numbers pushed the country’s total fatalities to 26,832 while the cases reached 15, 27,215, according to a DGHS handout.

The new cases were detected after testing 26,878 samples during the 24-hour period.

Around 29,541 samples were tested on the previous day.

Besides, the recovery rate rose to 96.39 percent while the case fatality remained unchanged at 1.76 percent compared to the corresponding period.

The country last saw 54 coronavirus-related deaths on June 18 and the upswing in the fatalities reached its peak on August 5 and 10 when 264 deaths were recorded.

However, the situation was much more catastrophic than June and the latter part of August as the country experienced a surge in Covid-related caseloads and deaths during that time.

Between May and June this year, there was a 273 percent rise in monthly caseloads and 162 percent in fatalities. In July, there was a 150 percent increase in caseloads and a 170 percent rise in deaths over previous month, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

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