By Chathushka Perera
Dhaka, Bangladesh (CWBN)_ Government ministries and divisions have taken a proactive charge in containing a second wave of Covid-19 in the country by the organization a national action plan based on cabinet instructions issued on the 1st of October.
Following a cabinet meeting last month, Cabinet Spokesperson, Khandker Anwarul Islam, that the government would not allow the arrangements to affect the local economy. Supporting Islam’s comment, the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics acknowledged a GDP growth of 5.24% (2019-20).
The statistics maybe labelled as controversial owing to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reporting a 2.4% contraction of global economies this year. India, one of the largest economies in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), which includes Bangladesh, recorded a contraction of 23.9%.
Thus the practicality of measures to be taken by the local government remains in a limbo, both in regard the financial atmosphere of the country and the effectiveness of the viral containment measures.
Since the outbreak of the pandemic, Bangladesh marked its highest number of Covid-19 cases in the month of July at 4008 new infections and has since made significant recovery. During the initial outbreak over 373,000 cases were reported. 5440 of the latter have been recorded as fatalities leaving around 81,000 active cases in the country at this time.
Hence, the hammering of another wave of Covid-19 maybe expected to have greater potency relative to the first.
Moreover, on the 6th of October that the International Monterey Fund has provided debt concessions for 28 countries, including Bangladesh, to enable national governments to use freed resources to contain the pandemic. Concession made toward Bangladesh value at 732 million USD in the form of Rapid Credit and Rapid Financing.
