The daily number of COVID-19 cases hit a fresh record of 5,358 in the past 24 hours ending at 8:00am on Wednesday, putting an enormous pressure on hospitals, particularly in the capital.

Fifty-two more people also died of COVID-19 during the 24-hour period, taking the country’s death toll from the disease to 9,046, according to the Directorate General of Health Services.

The daily number of COVID-19 cases crossed 5,000-mark for the first time on Monday, after the first cases had been detected in the country on March 8, 2020.  

The number of cases remained over 5,000 on Tuesday whereas the previous highest number of COVID-19 cases was at 4,019 on July 2, 2020.

The daily number of COVID-19 deaths crossed 50 for the sixth time on Wednesday.

The highest daily number of deaths was recorded at 64 on June 30, 2020.

The majority of the cases were detected in the capital, with hospitals in Dhaka fast running out of beds.

On Wednesday, out of 2,511 government hospital beds in the capital, 2,246 remained occupied and 103 of the 108 ICU beds in government hospitals were also occupied.

In private hospitals, 547 of the 928 general beds and 143 of the 188 ICU beds remained occupied.

Across the country, the bed occupancy rate was 40 per cent and the ICU occupancy rate was 65 per cent on Wednesday.

‘The general hospital beds and the ICUs in the capital are almost full,’ said DGHS spokesperson Robed Amin, also a director of the directorate.

‘We will not be able to offer services if such a surge in the number of patients continues. We are going to fall in sever crisis in health management,’ he told New Age.

‘We have requested the government authorities concerned to open makeshift arrangements soon to tackle the situation,’ he added.

The health ministry in the past week resumed COVID-19 treatments in five hospitals which had stopped the services after the improvement in the coronavirus situation a few months ago.

Health minister Zahid Maleque in the past week said that 3,000 more beds would be arranged in and around Dhaka.

Robed said that makeshift Bashundhara Hospital, which was opened for a brief period of time in the past year, would be reopened.

But the hospital would mainly offer isolation services as it has no facilities like ICU and oxygen supply, he said.

Robed said that they were expecting better health practices from people to keep the coronavirus at bay. ‘Or else, we all will suffer,’ he said.

Health minister Zahd Maleque on Wednesday urged people to follow health practices.

‘One month ago, we had an infection rate of around 2 per cent and the daily deaths dropped to five. We were so pleased that we started to think that the coronavirus crisis had passed,’ he told an online programme.

‘Our satisfaction has now become a big danger,’ the minister said.

He requested private hospitals in Dhaka to increase the number of beds for COVID-19 patients.

According to the DGHS, the daily infection rate surged further to 19.90 per cent on Wednesday from 18.94 per cent on Tuesday and 18.38 per cent on Monday.

The directorate in the daily update on Wednesday said that 26,931 samples were tested across the country in the past 24 hours and 5,358 of them found positive for COVID-19.

With the new cases, the country has so far recorded 6,11,295 COVID-19 cases.

The COVID-19 situation has deteriorated since the beginning of March after a gradual improvement since September, 2020.

Amid the worsening of the outbreak, the government on Monday issued a gazette notification with 18 directives restricting public gatherings.

Health minister Zahid Maleque on Monday said that the failure to contain the disease might bring dire consequences.

The government in its gazette notification banned all political, social and religious gatherings in highly infected areas.

The directives also discouraged social functions such as wedding and birthday parties, said the gazette notification.

Transport service providers have been directed to operate at the half capacity, maintain health guidelines and limit and stop, if needed, transport movements to and from highly infected areas.

The government instruction discouraged organising any kind of fair and urged for keeping public gathering limited at tourist spots, amusement centres, cinemas and theatre halls.

People have been asked not to go out of home after 10:00pm without any emergency while all government and non-government offices have been directed to run with half their employees directly attending offices and ensuring quarantine of infected ones.

The directives said that it would take effect immediately and remain effective for two weeks.