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Bangladesh govt to extend shutdown as COVID-19 situation worsens

390 more people have tested positive for the virus, bringing the total confirmed cases in the country to 3,772.

Bangladesh govt to extend shutdown as COVID-19 situation worsens

People queue to collect subsidised food items during a government-imposed nationwide lockdown as a preventive measure against the COVID-19 coronavirus, in Dhaka (Photo: AFP)

The Bangladesh government on Wednesday decided to further extend the ongoing shutdown as the COVID-19 situation has worsened in the country.

State Minister for Public Administration Farhad Hossain said, “We’ve decided to extend the nationwide shutdown of offices and workplaces to May 5,”

He said his Ministry will soon issue a circular in this regard, bdnews24 reported.

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Bangladesh on April 10 extended the lockdown to April 25.

To combat the spread of the COVID-19, Bangladesh had earlier declared a 10-day lockdown effective from March 26 to April 4.

390 more people have tested positive for the virus, bringing the total confirmed cases in the country to 3,772.

Last month, the country announced a stimulus package of 50 billion taka ($5.9 million) to help export-oriented industries to counter the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic at home and abroad.

The new deaths bring the total number of COVID-19 fatalities in the US to 46,583 since the outbreak began there, by far the highest figures recorded by any country caught in the global pandemic.

More than 1,80,000 people in the world have died from the novel coronavirus, nearly two-thirds of them in Europe, since it emerged in China last December, according to an AFP tally based on official sources.

In total, 1,80,289 deaths have been recorded worldwide for 2,596,383 infections, according to the tally. There were 1,12,848 deaths in Europe for 1,263,802 cases on the hardest-hit continent.

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