Bangladesh is doing far better than other countries on tackling Covid-19, government officials say citing data that shows the doubling rate of cases between 500 and 1000 cases has slowed down to 8 days and both the infected rate and the death rate in Bangladesh remains far less than compared globally.

Health officials were discussed same at a last night meeting and said that the lockdown so far had worked on the ground and a close vigil in the coming days could see Bangladesh overcome the Covid crisis.

Sharing data that the government has analysed in comparison with foreign countries, officials said that Bangladesh although had tested more people when the figure of infected people reached 1,000 than the US or the UK at the same levels.

While Bangladesh has tested about 50,000 people and found 500 cases, the US and UK had only conducted 1.39 lakh and 1.13 lakh tests respectively. Italy conducted only 73000-odd tests when it hit the benchmark of 10,000 cases. Canada, however, did more tests at 10,000 infections level with 2.95 lakh tests.

Officials also said that while it took four days in Bangladesh for cases to double from 250 to 500 and again four days for cases to double from 600 to 1300. In comparison, in the US and Germany, it took two days for cases to double from 6000 to 12000 cases while it took three days in Italy and four days in the UK, France as well as Spain.

Also, Bangladesh rate of infections so far is only eight per million while it stood at 267 per million worldwide and at 1946 in US, 3864 in Spain, 2732 in Italy, 2265 in France and 1451 in UK. Japan, which has performed well against COVID, reported 68 cases per million population, officials said as per the analysis by experts.

Bangladesh death rate per million population also stands so far only at 0.25 while it is far higher worldwide at 17.3 while the figure stands at 86 in USA, 402 in Spain, 358 in Italy, 263 in France and 190 in the UK. Countries like Australia, Japan and South Korea have reported a low fatality rate of only 2, 1 and 4 respectively per million population.