“01. The COVID-19 situation in Bangladesh has significantly improved during the last couple of weeks. For the last 21 consecutive days, the new infection rate has remained below 5% since 21 September (2.58% as of 11 October 2021). According to WHO guidelines, Bangladesh is on the right track to become one of the countries which has been able to keep COVID Pandemic ‘under control’ (i.e, infection rate remains below 5% of the tested population for 14 days or more).
02. This is also noteworthy, as during the second wave, despite significant surges of virulent Delta Variant infections, the number of deaths remained extremely low in Bangladesh, experiencing a 1.77% death rate against the global average of 2.04%. The number of deaths has noticeably decreased from a national high of 264 (on 10 August 2021) to 11 (as of 11 October 2021).
03. To sustain this improvement and for maintaining the subsequent normalcy in the daily lives of the people amid the resumption of all sorts of activities in the country, the Government has ensured the steady supply of the vaccines.
04. At present, four types of COVID-19 vaccines — AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Moderna and Sinopharm—are being administered. As of today, 36.58 million or 31% of the target population (80% population with age 18+) have received their first dose and 18.22 million or 15% of the target population have been fully vaccinated.
05. The improvement of our pandemic situation is now duly being taken into consideration worldwide. UK, Turkey, Jordan, Qatar, UAE, Bahrain, Thailand and Kuwait have already reflected their confidence by de-listing or by relaxing travel-related restrictive measures for Bangladesh. As a result, international flights have started operating normally to and from Bangladesh.
06. The UK has recognized our vaccine certificate and we are receiving more proposals for mutual recognition of the vaccine certificates.”