Staff Correspondent: Dhaka, Jul-30,

As Bangladesh races to head off a surge in Covid-19 cases driven by the Delta variant, the country added 212 fatalities to its national tally on Friday, up from 166 logged a week earlier.

The country has been shattering the records of daily cases and deaths almost every other day, reporting over 200 single-day fatalities for the last six days as it tries to prevent the spread of the Delta variant.

The rapid rise in cases and fatalities in July is enough to set off alarm bells, showing the pandemic is far from slowing down in Bangladesh.

The Covid-19 infections are at their peak now, with 12,293 new cases reported on average each day, plunging the country into uncertainty.

As the worst days of the pandemic are not over, Bangladesh recorded 13,862 new cases on Friday after testing 45,044 samples, up from 6,364 logged a week earlier on 23 July.

The country reported the highest daily Covid-19 fatality number – 258 – on July 27 and 16,230 infections the next day.

There have been 1,240,115 infections and 20,467 coronavirus-related deaths here since the pandemic began, according to the Directorate General of Health Services.

Meanwhile, the daily test positivity rate fell to 30.77% from July 23's 31.05% while the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends a 5% or below rate.

However, the recovery rate rose to 85.81% and the case fatality rate to 1.65% compared to the same period.

Amid growing concerns about the highly infectious Delta variant, Dhaka division reported the highest 65 deaths, Chattogram 53, Khulna 36, Sylhet 17, Rajshahi 13, Barishal 11, Rangpur nine, and Mymensingh eight.

So far, Bangladesh has administered at least 12,850,834 doses of Covid vaccines – enough to have vaccinated around 3.3% % of the country's population, assuming every person needs two doses.

Global Covid-19 cases are on the rise, with 3.8 million new infections confirmed in the week between July 19 and July 25, and a "sharp" rise has been reported in the number of fatalities, according to the WHO.

For the past week, the global cases rose by 8% compared to the previous week, which was largely attributed to substantial increases in the Americas and the Western Pacific Regions, the UN health agency said in its weekly update report.

The US, India and Brazil have seen the highest cases, followed by France, Russia, the UK and Turkey.

Variants are continuing their progression, as the Alpha variant was seen in 180 countries, territories or areas, and 13 new countries, territories or areas reported cases of the Delta variant.

While the Alpha variant is still detected more often than its counterpart, the Delta variant is believed by the WHO to be 50% more transmissible and might become the dominant form of the virus in the next few months.

End/Dct/Ahr/Sma/