The government on Thursday confirmed 4,019 new coronavirus cases and 38 deaths overnight and announced new phone numbers for the public to check the availability of hospital beds for the Covid19 patients.

With that, the number of confirmed Covid19 patients stood at 153,277 and deaths 1,926. So far, 66,442 patients recovered with the latest 4,334 in the last 24 hours till 8am on Thursday.

Additional director general for health Prof Nasima Sultana at the regular briefing updating the daily count said from now on people can get information on the availability of hospital beds dedicated for Covid19 patients using mobile phones.
Those numbers are: 01313-791130, 01313-791139, 01313-791139, 01313-791140, she said, adding that the initiative had been taken to reduce the hassle of Covid19 patients.

This comes following reports that people are running from one hospital to another searching for beds.
But the health directorate said still most of the hospital beds are empty.

There are 14,475 beds and 392 ICUs in Bangladesh dedicated to Covid19. But only 4628 patients are now undergoing treatment at these hospitals and 210 are admitted to the ICUs.

Prof Nasima said using those phone numbers people can find out how many coronavirus patients have been admitted in a hospital, how many beds are empty, or if there are any vacant beds in the ICU of a hospital.

Bangladesh first confirmed the virus in three patients on March 8 and the first death on March 18. The WHO declared the disease pandemic on March 11.

So far, 802,697 samples, including 18,362 in the last 24 hours, have been tested. The infection rate out of the tested samples is 19.10 percent.

Around 43.35 percent of the patients have recovered and 1.27 percent died.

Among the latest dead patients, 31 were from Dhaka, 12 from Chattogram, five each from Khulna and Rajshahi, two each from Sylhet and Barishal, one from Rangpur division. Thirty-three patients died in different hospitals and five at their respective homes.

According to the analysis of Covid-19 victims' age groups as of Thursday, the highest number of patients - 43.31 percent - died were aged sixty and above.

The age groups of 51-60 and 41-50 come next with respectively 29.08 percent and 14.80 percent. And the rest of the age groups stand under eight percent, such as- 31-40 with 7.58 percent, 21-30 with 3.47 percent, 11-20 with 1.14 percent and under ten with 0.62 percent.

The additional director general said they had been increasing the testing by the day since March.
In March, they tested 3,065 samples, in April 62,826, in May 243,039, in June 457,350 and 36,237 within the first two days of July.

Currently, 63,608 people are quarantined across Bangladesh – including 2,894 newly-quarantined individuals. A total of 305,581 people have completed their quarantine course.

The authorities placed 960 new individuals suspected of having Covid-19 into isolation, bringing the total to 15,757 after 12,775 left.