Taking serious cognisance of the rapid spread of Omicron across the world, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Wednesday directed the State health administration to increase the pace of Covid-19 vaccination so as to build resistance among the people against contracting the new variant of the coronavirus.
On a day when Maharashtra crossed a landmark of 12 crore single dose vaccinations and the total number of the people who have received both the doses touched 4.37 crore, no new case of Omicron was reported in the State on Wednesday. The total number of Omicron cases stood at 10.
Having taken stock of the threat posed by the new Covid-19 variant Omicron, chief minister Uddhav Thackeray –who presided over the weekly Cabinet meeting – directed the state health administration to speed up the process of the Covid-19 vaccinations in the state, saying that building immunity among the people through vaccination was the only way to check the rapid spread of Omicron in the state.
“In view of the rapid spread of Omicron across the world, we have to take utmost precautions to check the spread of the Covid-19 variant in the state. Apart from enforcing the Covid-19 protocols strictly, it is necessary for the state health administration to increase the Covid-19 vaccinations to fight the Omicron,” he said.
In his briefing on the rapid spread of the new Covid-19 variant across the world, the chief minister said that there was a record 45 per cent increase in the spread of Omicron during the last 12 hours. “Omicron has now spread to 54 countries. France is recording 40,000 Omicron cases every day, while the number of daily cases in Germany was around 50,000. Australia is also reeling under the Omicron wave and the country is on an average 7,000 new cases everyday”.
“In the United States, the pandemic situation has deteriorated once again and the situation currently being witnessed there is akin to the one that prevailed in November 2020. Everyday, more than one lakh new cases are being recorded. In South Africa, there has been a rapid increase in the number of Omicron cases during the last weeks. In fact, the number of cases is doubling there,” Uddhav told his Cabinet colleague.
Talking to media persons separately, State Health Minister Rajesh Tope said: “As far as the Omicron cases are concerned, there are 10 positive cases. All the affected patients are stable now. As many as 65 swab samples have been sent for genomic sequencing tests”. Of the samples sent for genomic sequencing, the results of 52 persons are awaited.