Bangladesh has registered 5,042 new Covid-19 cases with an infection rate of a whopping 18.94% in the past 24 hours.

Tuesday’s test positivity rate is the highest recorded in the last seven months.

It was August 22 last when the country had recorded a higher infection rate – 19.95%.

The daily infection rate was below 5% for about two months this year but it started to rise from the second week of March.

It saw a rise on Monday as it jumped to 18.38% from 17.65% the previous day and it is evident from the latest figures that the trend of the pandemic is upward.

With the fresh cases, the total number of cases now stands at 605,937.

The country recorded 45 more Covid deaths between Monday and Tuesday mornings, taking the total death toll to 8,994, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) said in a press release.

Tuesday was the second consecutive day that the daily tally of new cases and deaths crossed the 5,000 and 45-mark respectively.

More 47 Covid fatalities were recorded on August 28, 2020.

Of the 45 new deceased, 28 were male, and 17 female. Total 37 people died in Dhaka division, three in Chittagong, two each in Rajshahi and Khulna divisions, and one in Sylhet division.

So far, 5,118 people died in the Dhaka division, 1,631 in Chittagong, 501 in Rajshahi, 579 in Khulna, 273 in Barisal, 318 in Sylhet, 373 in Rangpur, and 201 in Mymensingh.

The mortality rate against the total number of cases detected so far stands at 1.48%.

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Meanwhile, 2,162 people recovered from Covid-19 over the preceding 24 hours.

Up till now, 540,180 patients — 89.15% — have recovered from the disease caused by coronavirus.

The DGHS said 27,350 samples were collected from suspected Covid-19 patients in the last 24 hours while a total of 26,620 samples were tested in government and private testing facilities.

To date, as many as 4,643,645 tests have been conducted in the country. The overall infection rate in the country stands at 13.05%.

On March 18, 202, Bangladesh had reported its first Covid-19 death.

Following a spike in infections, the government took a tougher stance to fight the pandemic.

The Health Ministry also recently sent letters to districts, directing the officials concerned to impose fines on people flouting Covid-19 protocols, after the recent surge in cases.

The country launched a countrywide vaccination drive on February 7. As the daily infection rate keeps rising, the government extended the closure of schools and colleges until May 23.

The Covid-19 first broke out in China’s Wuhan city in late December, 2019, and quickly spread throughout the world, becoming a pandemic in less than three months.

Until Tuesday afternoon, the fast-spreading novel coronavirus claimed over 2,806,000 lives after infecting more than 128,341,000 people across the world while over 103,549,000 people recovered, according to worldometer.