Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has assured that everyone in Bangladesh will be brought under COVID 19 vaccination programme. In her televised address on the eve of Eid Ul Fitr on Thursday, Prime Minister Hasina said that her government has contacted multiple sources to procure one crore doses of COVID 19 vaccines which is expected to arrive soon. She said that efforts are being made to domestically co-produce the vaccine also.
She urged people to celebrate the Eid-ul-Fitr at home and avoid gatherings to contain the Coronavirus in the country. She also called upon people to wear facemasks as it is the most effective way to control the spread of Coronavirus.
The COVID 19 situation in Bangladesh continued to show improvement even while experts feared another wave in the wake of huge movement of people from Dhaka to their respective home towns and villages to celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr. Streets of Dhaka wore a deserted look on Thursday as a huge number of people left Dhaka over the last several days to celebrate Eid at their ancestral places despite lockdown and restrictions on the movement of public transport in the country.
Bangladesh reported 31 deaths and 1290 new Corona positive cases on Thursday taking the death toll to 12,076 and total number of people infected with COVID 19 to over 7.78 lakh since the first case was reported in March last year. The sample positivity rate stood at 9.58 percent while the recovery rate went up to 92.41 percent in the country.
Meanwhile, the government is likely to extend the ongoing lockdown in the country for one week from May 16. State Minister for Public Administration Farhad Hossain told media on Thursday that the mask wearing will be enforced strictly with powers being given to the police to implement it effectively.