BD corona cases hit new daily record of 1,617, deaths rise by 16

Bangladesh witnessed 1,617 new cases of novel coronavirus on Wednesday, the health directorate said, its biggest daily increase yet in infections, bringing the total case count to 26,738.

Authorities also registered 16 more fatalities in the last 24 hours to 8:00am today. The country has now tallied 386 deaths from the virus.

Nasima Sultana, additional director general (admin) at the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), presented the latest figures while briefing the media live on the daily COVID-19 bulletin at 2:30pm.

The fresh coronavirus infections were found after testing 10,207 samples across the country.

Also, 214 more patients have recovered from the disease in the 24-hour period, taking the total number of recoveries to 5,207.

Bangladesh reported the first cases of coronavirus on March 08 and the first death 10 days later on March 18.

In an effort to contain the virus, the whole country has been put on shutdown since March 26, but the number of COVID-19 cases continues to rise.

Meanwhile, the global death toll from coronavirus has reached 325,156 as of Wednesday noon.

It has so far infected 5,000,630 people around the world, according to Worldometer - a website that provides real-time updates.

Of them, 2,704,495 are currently being treated with 45,429 remain in serious or critical condition.

So far, 1,970,979 people have recovered. 

The novel coronavirus disease was first reported in China in December last year.

As the COVID-19 began sweeping across the world, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared it a pandemic on March 11 this year.