Health guidelines ignored, grave danger ahead

A dangerous situation waits for Bangladesh, according to health experts, as the fresh restrictions imposed by the government with a view to containing the surge of Covid-19, have mostly ignored as people across the country move in such a way that the pandemic has disappeared.

Most of the people are reluctant to wear face mask. Physical distancing is a forgotten matter now. People are showing thumb to the recently issued 11-point health guidelines aggravating the Covid-19 situation. Public transports are carrying on their business as earlier without paying heed to the restrictions.

Amid the growing concern over the new Omicron variant of the coronavirus, the government on January 13 came out with the restrictions on movement of people and public transport vehicles.

6,667 fresh cases and 10 more deaths were logged in the country in 24 hours till 8am on Monday. The caseload has now stood at 16,24,387 and death toll has surged to  28,154, according to a regular bulletin issued by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).As many as 31,980 samples were tested across the country in the last 24 hours, with the positivity rate 20.88 percent. The mortality rate against the total number of cases detected currently stands at 1.74 percent.

Noted Virologist and member of the National Technical Advisory Committee (NTAC) on Covid-19 Professor Dr Nazrul Islam said, "At the very beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, we advised all to wear face masks. But no strict measures were taken to ensure the compliance of mandatory mask-wearing."

If wearing of face masks is ensured, 80 percent people will remain safe from the coronavirus, he added.The total number of Omicron cases in the country stood at 55 as of Sunday, according to the data released from Germany in the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID), an international database organization for the virus.