Shawdesh desk:

The corona situation may start to improve after one week in Bangladesh, health experts say, as many countries are relaxing their restrictions following the gradual improvement of the deadly pandemic.

They also say if any new variant of Covid-19 doesn’t hit Bangladesh, the pandemic situation will start to become normal, they also said.

“The country’s corona situation now remains steady with the daily infection rate of around 30 percent for the last few consecutive days. After one or two weeks, we can say whether the infections will drop or not,” Prof Dr Tahmina Shirin, director of the IEDCR, told the Daily Sun.

She said many factors work to drop the corona infection cases, including maintaining health rules.

According to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), during the fresh surge of the coronavirus infection in the country that started at the end the December last, the highest number of daily infection rate was reported 33.37 percent on January 28.

It said the daily infection rate nears 30 percent at the third week of January and the daily infection rate remains around 30 percent for around two weeks in a row.

The DGHS data said the daily infection rate was reported 28.49 percent on January 21, it was 28.02 percent on January 22, it increased to 31.29 percent on January 23, 32.37 percent on January 24, 32.40 percent on January 25, 31.64 percent on January 26, 31.98 percent on January 27, 33.37 percent on January 28, 31.10 percent on January 29, it declined to 28.33 percent on January 30, 29.77 percent on January 31, 29.17 percent on February 1 and 27.43 percent on February 2 in the country.

The experts said it was observed in many countries that the coronavirus infection transmission due to influence of the new variant Omicron remains five to seven weeks. So, if any new variant doesn’t spread in the country then the infection rate may start dropping here after one week.

Talking to the Daily Sun, Prof Dr Nazrul Islam, a member of National Technical Advisory Committee on Covid-19, said, “The daily infection rate remains steady for last few days and it is not increasing further. I think, such situation will remain for more few days then it may start dropping after around one week.”

Describing the reason behind the current steady situation of the coronavirus of the country, Nazrul Islam, also former Vice Chancellor  of BSMMU said immunity has already been created among large number of people and also bringing a large number of people under the coronavirus vaccination.

Dr ASM Alamgir, principal scientific officer of Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) said corona infections increase from five to seven weeks in a row in different parts of the world. As a result, infections have increased in the country from late December to January which continues still.

“So, I think corona infections may begin to drop after one week. However, everything if depending on people’s attitude. If they do not maintain health rules then it may increase further,” he added.

According to the DGHS, though the number of corona infection cases has increased in the fresh surge of the virus transmission but the number of deaths from the deadly pathogen is comparatively less, the previous waves of the virus transmission.

Describing the cause behind the less number of deaths from the disease this time, the experts said vaccination is the main cause as a large number of people have been brought under the coronavirus vaccination in the country already while booster dose of the vaccine is also being administered.

Amid a fresh surge in Covid-19 cases and deaths, the government on 30 January lowered the age limit for booster jabs to 40 and above from 50.

Health Minister Zahid Maleque said the government has also taken a decision to inoculate all children aged 12 and above across the country.

Amid a fresh surge in coronavirus cases, fuelled by highly contagious Omicron variant, the government on January 21 imposed fresh five-point restrictions, including shutting educational institutions for two weeks and limiting the number of people in social gatherings, to curb the spread of the virus.

The government earlier imposed 11 restrictions which came into effect on January 13 to prevent the fresh surge of the coronavirus cases.

Meanwhile, many countries have started relaxing the corona restrictions depending on vaccination and mild symptoms of the Omicron variant, according to media reports.

Denmark is the first European Union country to lift all of its corona restrictions despite record numbers of cases, depending on its high vaccination rate and considering milder Omicron variant, said a media report.

However, the WHO’s technical lead on Covid-19 on Tuesday said many countries have not reached their peak in cases of Omicron variant and measures imposed to curb its spread should be eased slowly.