Health ministry asks people to wear masks in public places amid COVID reemergence

Amid a recent spike in COVID-19 cases, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has requested citizens to wear masks in public places to protect themselves from contracting the virus.

In a media statement on Friday, the ministry asked everyone, “the elderly and the sick” in particular, to keep their masks on in crowds.

On Thursday, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) reported the first death due to COVID-19 in nearly a year and a half, alongside three new cases of infection from 21 samples.

According to a bulletin of the health directorate, the deceased was an 82-year old residing in Dhaka’s Lalbagh. He died at Dhaka’s United Hospital.

No new cases have been reported on Friday.

Since the onset of the pandemic in 2020, Bangladesh has tested 15,726,224 samples, confirming a total of 2,051,739 COVID-19 cases.

Of these, 29,500 people have died from the infection.

In 2023, as many as 37 people died due to COVID-19 after 1,368 had died in 2022.

The virus caused 7,559 fatalities in 2020 before another 20,513 people died in 2021, registering the deadliest year of the pandemic in Bangladesh.