When Khadiza Khatun took her Covid-infected grandmother to Rajshahi Medical College Hospital on Sunday night, she never imagined that she was going to experience such a shock.

People from the low-income groups in urban areas are struggling to have three meals a day, consume quality food and maintain their daily protein intake due to the crisis induced by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Two and a half million shots of the Moderna vaccine for coronavirus will arrive in the country on July 2 or 3, paving the way for resuming the mass inoculation campaign after over two months.

The number of Covid-19 deaths continued to rise as the health directorate reported 112 deaths in the 24 hours till 8:00am yesterday -- the second highest daily toll recorded in the country.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said the problems over securing Covid vaccines have been resolved and her government will carry out a massive vaccination campaign across the country once more jabs arrive next month.

Anyone who goes outdoors without an urgent cause will face severe punishment during the seven-day lockdown starting tomorrow.

Accumulated gas was behind the massive explosion at the ground floor of a three-storey building in the capital’s Moghbazar on Sunday evening, said officials and experts.

Leaky gas pipes were the fourth most common cause of fires reported last year, according to Fire Service and Civil Defence data.

Bangladesh reported 8,364 new Covid-19 infections in 24 hours ending at 8:00am yesterday, a record high number of daily infections since the confirmation of its first cases on March 8 last year.

The government plans to go all out to make sure that people stay at home during the “strict lockdown” to be enforced from Thursday to stem the surge in Covid deaths and infections.

Good news for Bangladeshi migrant workers!

Another 83 Bangladeshis were rescued in the Mediterranean off the Tunisian coast on Sunday when they were trying to go to Europe across the sea illegally.

The average life expectancy of Bangladeshis has increased to 72.8 years in 2020 during the outbreak of coronavirus from 72.6 years in 2019, according to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS).

Tofail Ahmed, senior lawmaker from the ruling Awami League, and Kazi Firoz Rashid, an MP from the Jatiya Party, expressed frustration in parliament yesterday, saying that bureaucrats were being given various important responsibilities by ignoring the politicians.

Abul Kashem, 45, used to drive buses owned by others for 25 years and dreamed of one day owning his own bus.

Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen expressed scepticism about procuring vaccines smoothly saying bilateral cooperation is not the only deciding factor and that issues of global politics are at play.

People in their thousands, mostly low-income ones, made desperate bids to leave the capital yesterday ahead of the nationwide complete lockdown from Thursday.

A total of 119 people died with Covid-19 in Bangladesh in 24 hours until yesterday morning, the biggest figure since the pandemic hit the country.

Brig Gen Md Sazzad Hussain, director general of Fire Service and Civil Defence, said they are primarily suspecting that the explosion took place from accumulation of gas from a leakage.

When the cabinet division decided late on Saturday evening that the nationwide “total and complete” lockdown would be postponed from June 28 to July 1, and there would be a limited-scale or partial countrywide lockdown in the interim period, it left many asking what a “limited-scale” lockdown even meant.