Bangladesh’s performance in the Covid-19 pandemic was recently recognized in Bloomberg’s Covid-19 resilience ranking
When the Covid-19 pandemic hit Bangladesh on March 8, fitness experts panicked. They thought limited fitness facilities and a gigantic population, combined with the highly contagious coronavirus, were a recipe for disaster.
One year on, Bangladesh has defied forecasts and logic to somehow stay above water. Over 550,000 cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed and nearly 8,500 people have died in the country, but this is far from a bad record for a country with over 160 million people.
According to Worldometer, a statistics collection website, Bangladesh ranks 34th globally in terms of the number of cases. However, the countries that have recorded fewer cases than Bangladesh even though they have a larger population are Nigeria (158,237 cases consistent with a population of approximately 210 million). and China (89,975 cases, compared to a population of 1. 4 billion).
A more objective indicator of Covid-19 in a given country is the number of deaths per million inhabitants. In this indicator, Bangladesh ranks 81st with 51 deaths, higher than many more evolved countries such as Japan (91 with 65 deaths). ), Norway (106th with 116 deaths) and the Netherlands (184th with 921 deaths).
Globally, deaths per million population stands at about 334.
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Bangladesh’s functionality in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic was recently identified in Bloomberg’s Covid-19 Resilience Ranking, where the country ranks 24th out of 53 global economies worth more than $200 billion.
Bangladesh was also among the first countries in the world to begin vaccinating the population, with the nationwide vaccination campaign kicking off on February 7. A total 3,789,352 people have been vaccinated in the country, so far, and 5,017,804 people have registered for the vaccine.
Regarding Bangladesh’s functionality in dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic, Additional Director General (Admin) of Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) Dr Nasima Sultana said: “There have been several festivals and occasions during the pandemic, such as Eid and janazas following the death of some devotee leaders. Some devotee leaders have exacerbated the situation by holding gigantic gatherings at such times.
“However, we temporarily learned from our mistakes and were able to control the situation. Although some other people are still testing positive for Covid-19, the decline in the positivity rate at this time shows that we are in control,” he added.
He also warned that other people will have to continue to abide by fitness rules to keep the rate low, or threaten to trigger a second wave.
“Some people are behaving recklessly, which is why the positivity rate has gone up slightly again. If people continue to defy health rules, the virus may spread again,” the ADG said.
DGHS Director-General Dr. ABM Khurshid Alam said Bangladesh would be even better off now if other people wore masks well since the beginning of the pandemic.