The number of coronavirus patients was doubling every day in the last three days in Bangladesh, prompting the authorities to take strict social distancing measures, including restricting religious congregations in all places of worship and closing all shops by 7pm.
Director General for Health Services Prof Abul Kalam Azad briefing reporters online on Monday said they detected 35 new cases in the last 24 hours which were 18 on the previous day and 9 on the day before.
This was the highest spike in a day since the first case was detected on March 8.
Three more patients have died during the last 24 hours. None recovered, he said, during the 2pm briefing. With that, the number of coronavirus patients stood at 123 in Bangladesh – 12 died and 33 recovered.
The government’s disease monitoring agency, IEDCR, earlier said they were getting local community transmission in five areas –Bashabo and Tolarbagh inside Dhaka, Narayanganj on the outskirt of the capital Dhaka, Madaripur, a district in central Bangladesh, and northern Gaibandha.
The director general said of the total cases, 64 were detected from Dhaka followed by 23 in Narayanaganj. The rest patients are scattered in 13 more districts with most cases in Madaripur and Gaibandha.
Other districts which have patients with coronavirus include Chattogram, Cumilla, Chuadanga, Gazipur, Jamalpur, Shariatpur, Cox’s Bazaar, Moulvibazar, Syelhet and Rangpur, and four upazillas under Dhaka district such as Keraniganj, Savar, Nawabganj and Dhamrai.
Hour after their briefing, the Ministry of Religious Affairs issued an emergency notice asking all mosques and places of worship to suspend their congregations.
According to the instruction, no more than five people can congregate in each mosque for prayers, which mean only the mosque staff such as Imams and Muajjens would be able to continue the five regular prayers. On Friday’s Jumma prayer, maximum 10 persons can be accommodated.
Legal action would be taken against those who fail to comply with the order, it said.
The Dhaka Metropolitan Police asked all shops and superstores to shut down their business by 7pm. Otherwise, they will force them to do so. The Chattogram Metropolitan Police also took similar decision.
Health Minister Zahid Maleque at an event on Monday urged people to comply with the government instructions, saying the next 30 days will be a ‘crucial period’ for Bangladesh as the case was rising.
He held a special meeting with government and private health bodies on the coronavirus issue at the Bangladesh College of Physicians and Surgeons (BCPS) building in Dhaka’s Mohakhali area.
“The next 30 days are critical for us. The nation will get rid of this pandemic if people stay safe and be careful,” he said.
The rapid spreading COVID-19, which was first reported in China's Wuhan city in December last week, has claimed 69,501 lives and infected 1,275,000 people across the world till Monday, according to Worldometers.
As many as 265,887 people have recovered from Covid-19, a disease caused by a new strain of coronavirus, which has spread to 208 countries and territories across the planet.
Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) director Professor Dr Meerjady Sabrina Flora said the fresh 35 cases were detected from the 468 samples tested in 14 labs across Bangladesh in the last 24 hours.
Among those, 30 were male and five female and 11 of them were in their 40s and six in their 20s.
Of the deceased, one was the director of the Bangladesh Anti-Corruption Commission. He was 48 years old. He had asthma that deteriorated his condition further, the director general said.
He said so far 66,810 people were kept at both home and institutional quarantine and of them, 299 were under institutional quarantine.
So far 14,41,793 people received healthcare services from hotline mobile numbers and health web portals as the government formed a group of medical professionals comprising 13,262 doctors to provide emergency health services to the people.
People have been asked to contact hotline and mobile numbers – 16263; 333; 10655 and 01944333222 – to receive information and treatment facilities on Covid-19.