Bangladesh to impose week-long air vacation ban after COVID surge | Coronavirus pandemic Information

All intercontinental and domestic flights to be banned for a week from Wednesday, coinciding with a different lockdown amid spike in cases.

Bangladesh has introduced designs to ban all intercontinental and domestic flights for a week from Wednesday, coinciding with yet yet another lockdown to counter a spike in novel coronavirus bacterial infections.

All global passenger flights to and from Bangladesh will stay suspended from April 14 to 20, the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB) explained on Sunday.

More than 500 flights will be cancelled simply because of the ban, reported the CAAB’s Air Vice Marshal M Mafidur Rahman.

Domestic passenger flights and chartered helicopter flights are integrated in the suspension, even though some exceptions might be designed for healthcare evacuations, humanitarian aid and cargo flights, the aviation authority explained.

A surge in COVID-19 situations given that March prompted the governing administration to enforce a nine-working day nationwide shutdown until eventually Tuesday, to be adopted by nevertheless yet another 7-working day lockdown from Wednesday to slow the spread of the virus.

The authorities imposed a ban on air travellers from Europe and 12 other countries on April 3. Passenger flight operations on domestic routes ended up suspended on April 5.

Ex-PM assessments beneficial

In the meantime, Bangladesh’s previous Key Minister Khaleda Zia has tested favourable for the novel coronavirus, her oppositional Bangladesh Nationalist Celebration (BNP) stated on Sunday.

Zia has been asymptomatic and was executing properly, Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, a senior chief of the BNP, explained to a news briefing, urging individuals to pray for her.

The 74-12 months previous politician has been under the supervision of her private medical professionals at property in Dhaka at any time given that she was unveiled from jail soon after the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina suspended her prison term on health grounds in March past 12 months.

Zia, a a few-time key minister in the 1990s and 2000s, had been in prison given that February 2018 after a court sentenced her to 5 yrs in jail for misappropriating money meant for orphans. A larger court docket afterwards doubled the expression.

8 other staff members members of her house have also been examined optimistic for the COVID-19, according to her medical doctor Mohammad Al Mamun.

Bangladesh, which noted its to start with circumstances of the novel coronavirus past March, reported its best single-working day improve in bacterial infections on Friday, with 7,462 cases. So significantly, the state has reported some 684,756 circumstances and 9,739 fatalities.

The South Asian country previously imposed a nationwide shutdown for more than two months beginning March 2020.