Systematic Assessment of COVID-19 Pandemic in Bangladesh: Effectiveness of Preparedness in the First Wave

Background: To develop an effective countermeasure and determine our susceptibilities to the outbreak of COVID-19 is challenging for a densely populated developing country like Bangladesh and a systematic review of the disease on a continuous basis is necessary. Methods: Publicly available and globally acclaimed datasets (4 March 2020-30 September 2020) from IEDCR, Bangladesh, JHU, and ECDC database are used for this study. Visual exploratory data analysis is used and we fitted a polynomial model for the number of deaths. A comparison of Bangladesh scenario over different time points as well as with global perspectives is made. Results: In Bangladesh, the number of active cases had decreased, after reaching a peak, with a constant pattern of death rate at from July to the end of September, 2020. Seventy-one percent of the cases and 77% of the deceased were males. People aged between 21 and 40 years were most vulnerable to the coronavirus and most of the fatalities (51.49%) were in the 60+ population. A strong positive correlation (0.93) between the number of tests and confirmed cases and a constant incidence rate (around 21%) from June 1 to August 31, 2020 was observed. The case fatality ratio was between 1 and 2. The number of cases and the number of deaths in Bangladesh were much lower compared to other countries. Conclusions: This study will help to understand the patterns of spread and transition in Bangladesh, possible measures, effectiveness of the preparedness, implementation gaps, and their consequences to gather vital information and prevent future pandemics.