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.

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

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.

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.

It is a frustrating thought that the outbreak of COVID-19 in Bangladesh that is inevitable from the data from all over the world, could have been brought under some control

In these uncertain times, we are heartened by the news that the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b) will award grants worth USD 400,000 for women researchers and scientists, in commemoration of the birth centenary of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

At a time when central banks around the world are taking a whole host of precautionary measures and the world economy as well as all individual economies are under significant duress due to the coronavirus pandemic, it’s astounding that our central bank is yet to even consider what actions it could take should the situation worsen.

While the government has been grappling with the coronavirus testing kit crisis with more and more COVID-19 cases being detected every day, the news of a testing kit developed by the Gonoshasthaya Kendra has made us very hopeful.

With the first COVID-19 related death confirmed by the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR), the level of panic amongst the citizens now seems to have intensified severely.

We are shocked at the way two police stations have treated the case of Shafiqul Islam Kajol, a journalist who has been missing for a week after a case was filed against him by a lawmaker.

In a report published in this daily yesterday, the WHO spokesperson in Bangladesh warned that refugees are more at risk of infection from communicable diseases because they live in overcrowded camps and settlements.

Hardly have we started effectively addressing the COVID-19 virus that has taken the form of a pandemic, when we have the distressing news of the onset of dengue in the country.