The New York governor has rightly said that ventilators are to the coronavirus fight what “missiles were to WWII”.

As we have said time and again in this column, echoing the directives of WHO and experts within the country and outside—we must speed up the testing process on an urgent basis, now that we are entering the fourth week since Bangladesh reported its first official Covid-19 case.

In these dark and depressing times, when we are bombarded with news of death, hardship and mismanagement of scarce resources, it is truly heartening to see that individuals and small organisations are stepping up and reaching out to those most in need of support.

The countrywide shutdown was a timely step by the administration. It was a necessary inconvenience to stem the spread of COVID-19 and ward off the likelihood of the kind of situation that was and is being faced in many countries.

We are outraged at the death of Shanu Hawlader, a 55-year-old farmer, in police custody in Barguna.

It is truly disappointing that, at a time when we need citizens of this country to be more selfless, compassionate and altruistic than ever, some unscrupulous businessmen and pharmacists are arbitrarily hiking prices of essential medications.

At a time when most of our government and private hospitals are struggling to get personal protective equipment (PPE) for their doctors, nurses and medical staff and sufficient resources for the infected Covid-19 patients,

Patients with fever are thronging hospitals and diagnostic centres on a daily basis, especially as fear has gripped the nation while more and more people continue to show symptoms of Covid-19.

As the coronavirus pandemic rages across the globe with increasing ferocity, it has become evident that many countries missed the first window of opportunity to contain the spread of the virus by taking timely measures.

We welcome the government’s decision to release Khaleda Zia from prison on humanitarian grounds. The government through an

With the coronavirus forcing more shutdowns across the country as well as the world, businesses and the economy, which have already been negatively affected, are bound to be hampered further.

We are worried at the way hundreds of people left the capital after the government announced a ten-day general holiday starting

In the 49 years since independence, Bangladesh has lived through and tackled many natural and man-made disasters—from famines to floods, from industrial disasters to autocratic dictatorships—but this is the first time in our history that we are facing a crisis of such disastrous proportions.

The government’s decision to deploy the military to assist the civil administration in combatting the onslaught of the virus has come not a day too soon.

There’s been a crisis of leadership in Bangladesh ever since the threat of an outbreak of the coronavirus loomed large on our horizon.

A senior member of the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization warned that a worldwide food inflation could happen if the coronavirus pandemic leads to lockdowns and panic food buying.

We are baffled at the claim of the authorities that there is no community transmission (when the source of infection is not known) of Covid-19 in the country on the basis of only a handful of tests that can hardly give any conclusive picture for a population as large as ours.

While it is the bounden duty of Dhaka Wasa to provide drinking water to its residents, that cannot be by depriving other areas of drinking and irrigation water. But that is exactly what the Dhaka Wasa has been doing with the water of a natural aquifer in Bhakurta to supply water to the Mirpur residents for the last five years.

As more and more people are testing positive with COVID-19 every day, with the actual number of people infected still unknown to us, fear has gripped the nation.

We are surprised to learn from a report by The Daily Star that around 16,000 acres of Sal forest in Mymensingh’s Bhaluka upazila is at risk because the land ministry recorded it as khas and private land by mistake.