Shopping zones in Dhaka witnessed a crowd on Friday ahead of the Eid-ul-Azha holidays as the government eased the nationwide coronavirus lockdown on Thursday for the country’s second-biggest religious festival.
The decision was seen as an effort to balance life and livelihood before the Eid which will be celebrated on July 21. The government encouraged all to maintain health and hygiene rules such as wearing masks while going out.
But this photograph which was taken from Dhaka’s New Market on Friday afternoon showed that hundreds of people crowded the place with most of them without masks.
Such crowds were seen in the areas of New Market, Chandni Chawk, Gausia, and Chandrima Super Market. The crowd also triggered heavy traffic congestion in front of the New Market.
The Directorate General of Health Services in its daily bulletin on Friday said 187 more people died of Covid-19 in the last 24 hours and 12,148 new cases were identified. 28.96 percent of the total samples were tested positive which was higher than Thursday’s 27.23 percent.
Maintaining physical distance was a big challenge due to the crowd. Many shop owners and customers were seen without masks and many with their masks down.
The government earlier on Thursday decided to relax the strict Covid-19 lockdown till July 22 considering the Eid to keep the cattle market open. Public transport was also resumed on a limited scale while shopping malls and stores were reopened.
The strict lockdown will be in place again for 14 more days from July 23 after the Eid holidays.
