Bangladesh lifts lockdown to celebrate, exasperating experts

With the spread of the COVID-19 rampant, most everything in Bangladesh was ordered shut on July 1, from markets to mass transportation

Waiting among hundreds of fellow travellers to catch a ferry out of Bangladesh’s capital, unemployed construction worker Mohammed Nijam knew he was risking catching the coronavirus, but he felt it was even riskier to stay in Dhaka with another lockdown looming. “I have to pay rent every month even though I have no work,” he said, adding that his landlord had been bothering him for money even as he was struggling just to feed himself. “I’d rather go to my village home and lead life as God lets me.” Mr. Nijam is among the tens of millions of Bangladeshis shopping and travelling this week during a controversial eight-day pause in the country’s strict coronavirus lockdown that the government is allowing for the Islamic festival Eid-al Adha. The suspension has been panned by health experts who warn it could exacerbate an ongoing surge fuelled by the highly contagious delta variant, which was first detected in neighbouring India.