<span style="color: black;">The surge in COVID 19 infection in Bangladesh continued with 5358 new cases reported from the country on Wednesday. This is the highest single day infection since the first Corona positive case was reported on March 8 last year. Over the last 24 hours since Tuesday, 52 people have died due to Corona infection in the country taking the total death toll to 9046 . This is the highest figure since August 26 last year when 54 people had died due to COVID 19 infection.</span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: black;">The positivity rate in the samples collected for testing also continued to show an upward trend at 19.90 percent on Wednesday. On February 28, the positivity rate in the country was about 3 percent.</span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: black;">Following the announcement of a fresh set of directives, the government announced that motorcycle ride services would be banned in the country for two weeks.</span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: black;">All public transport including buses, railways and waterways have been directed to carry only 50 percent passengers of their capacity. Government has announced enhancement of fare for buses to compensate for the capacity reduction in carrying passengers.</span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: black;">The ongoing Ekushey Book fair, which is the longest and largest book fair of Bangladesh, has announced that the timings have been curtailed to 3 hours only for the visitors. </span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: black;">Meanwhile, the mass vaccination programme in the country is continuing. On Wednesday, 50,752 people were vaccinated, taking the total number of people receiving COVID 19 shot to over 53.70 lakh.</span><br />''