Shawdesh desk:

The overall number of global Covid cases has now surpassed the 199-million mark as the world continues to grapple against the devastating second wave of the pandemic.

According to the US-based Johns Hopkins University (JHU), the total case count reached 199,499,792 while the death toll from the virus stood at 4,245,542 on Wednesday morning.

So far, 4,142,591,204 vaccine doses have been administered across the world.

The US, which is the world’s worst-hit country in terms of both cases and deaths, has so far logged 35,231,310 cases. Besides, 614,263 people have lost their lives in the US to date, as per the JHU data.

Brazil has registered 1,209 more Covid-19 deaths in the past 24 hours, raising its national death toll to 558,432, the health ministry said on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the total caseload rose to 19,985,817 after 32,316 new cases were detected.

Brazil currently has the world’s second-highest pandemic death toll after the United States and the third-largest caseload after the United States and India.

The South American country is experiencing a new wave of infections, which has overwhelmed hospitals, said the ministry.

India’s Covid-19 tally rose to 31,726,507 on Tuesday as 30,549 new cases were registered during the past 24 hours across the country, according to the federal health ministry.

As many as 422 deaths were recorded since Monday morning, taking the death toll to 425,195.

Although the situation in Europe is improving, globally it is worsening as the Delta variant of Covid-19 has now been detected in 124 territories worldwide, says the World Health Organization (WHO).

Situation in Bangladesh

Amid the merciless onslaught of Covid-19 in Bangladesh, the country recorded 236 more deaths linked to the virus in 24 hours till Tuesday morning.

According to a handout issued by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), 15,776 more people came out positive with the virus during the period after the test of 55,284 samples.

The fresh numbers pushed the country’s death tally to 21,397 on Tuesday, with the caseload mounting to 1,296,093.

Meanwhile, the daily test positivity rate fell to 28.58 % from Monday’s 29.91%, while the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends a 5% or below rate.

The country has been seeing over 14,300 cases and 230 deaths every day on an average for the last seven days.

The recovery rate, however, rose to 86.80%, and the case fatality remained unchanged at 1.65% compared to the same period, said the DGHS.

Amid the growing concerns about the highly infectious Delta variant, Dhaka division reported the highest 73 deaths, Chattogram 65, Khulna 32, Rajshahi 21, Sylhet, Rangpur and Mymensingh each 12, and Barishal eight deaths.

Lockdown extended

The government has extended the current lockdown till August 10 amid a surge in the Delta variant of Covid-19 across the country.

Liberation War Affairs Minister AKM Mozammel Haque announced the decision of the government while talking to reporters after an inter-ministerial meeting on Tuesday.

The government has made vaccination mandatory for people’s movement from August 11 and a decision has been taken to provide punitive action against those who will fail to get Covid shots in time.

The government is set to launch a mass vaccination drive at the village level from 14,000 vaccine centres from August 7, as one crore people will be inoculated in the next one week.