General holiday extended till May 30

The ongoing general holidays to curb the transmission of coronavirus have been extended till May 30 in the face of continued loss of life and progressively higher number of infections detected across the country.

The Ministry of Public Administration issued a gazette notification on Thursday in this regard.On March 23, the government declared general holidays from March 26 to April 4 to curb the spread of coronavirus.

Later, the holidays were extended five times to May 5. A notification on April 25 included directive that all the ministries, divisions and their subordinate offices involved in providing emergency services will remain open on a limited scale during the extended general holidays.

The government closed all educational institutions and shut down rail, road, river and air communications to prevent the spread of the highly contagious virus.

Amid high risk of coronavirus transmission, some garment factories reopened on April 26 and factory owners claimed they were operating with workers available in Dhaka maintaining hygiene issues.

COVID-19, the disease associated with the novel coronavirus, was first reported in China in December last year, and is now affecting 212 countries and territories around the world.

Bangladesh on Thursday recorded another big jump in coronavirus cases within a single day as the health authorities confirmed the detection of 1,041 new patients in the last 24 hours, raising the total cases to 18,863.

source: UNB