Bangladesh authorities are preparing to enforce a national lockdown to combat a deadly increase of Covid-19 infections, with public transport networks closing and soldiers ready to patrol the streets.
- Bangladesh is set to enter the toughest lockdown enforced till now from Thursday to control the alarming Covid-19 situation after logging the highest number of single-day fatalities and cases in two consecutive days.
- As authorities halted almost all public transport, leaving commuters to walk, thousands of people were stranded in the capital, Dhaka, sometimes for hours, in the sweltering summer heat.
- The government prepares to deploy personnel of the Bangladesh Army alongside police and Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) to ensure proper implementation of the lockdown.
- During this lockdown, people will not be allowed to leave their houses except for any emergencies and besides that, no movement passes will be issued like the last time, according to the decision taken at the Cabinet meeting on Monday.
- At the meeting, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina instructed the authorities to provide food and cash aid to temporary jobless people, including transport workers and the floating population during this strict lockdown.
- As many people had already left their places ahead of the lockdown, PM told the authorities to prepare a list to provide aid to everyone even if they did not have any identity cards or were not from that area.
More than two-thirds of new virus cases in Dhaka’s were of the Delta variant, a recent study by the independent Dhaka-based International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research reported.
