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Thousands of people were trapped in the capital of Bangladesh before the authorities began implementing a week-long full lockdown on Thursday to combat the deadly resurgence of COVID-19 infection.
The country reported that there were more than 8,300 new infections on Monday and 119 deaths on Sunday.
Its total number of cases is close to 900,000, while the number of deaths from COVID-19 is only over 14,000. But experts said that due to possible underreporting, the actual number may be much higher.
Officials blamed the recent spike on the highly contagious delta variant first discovered in neighboring India.
As part of the restrictions, most of the 168 million people of this South Asian country will be confined at home by Thursday, allowing only basic services and some export-oriented factories to operate.
The government’s cabinet secretary, Khandker Anwarul Islam, said that the army will be deployed from Thursday to help implement the blockade.
“The armed forces will conduct patrols. If someone ignores their orders, they will take legal action,” he told reporters late on Monday.
The blockade announcement triggered an outflow of migrant workers from Dhaka to their hometown on Sunday. Thousands of people squeezed into the ferry to cross a large river.
The staggered implementation of the lockdown rules forced thousands of workers in Dhaka to walk to the office on Mondays, sometimes for several hours, on a hot summer day.
Commuters said the government allowed rickshaws to operate at the last minute on Sunday, but prices soared to unaffordable levels.
In mid-April, as the number of cases and deaths jumped to the highest level since the pandemic began, restrictions on activities and movements were imposed across Bangladesh.
The number of infections declined in May, but started to rise again this month, which triggered stricter restrictions in this South Asian country.
Health officials around the world are shocked by the rapid spread of the Delta variant. According to the World Health Organization, the variant has spread to at least 85 countries.
A recent study by the Independent International Center for Diarrheal Disease Research in Dhaka stated that more than two-thirds of new COVID-19 cases in the capital of Bangladesh belong to the Delta variant.
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