n Amid WHO warning that the Covid-19 virus remained a major threat despite partially passing under the radar, India’s Covid-19 sub-variant JN.1 has touched a tally of 1,200 cases so far with Nagaland becoming the latest of the 17 states and Union territories to have detected its presence, according to INSACOG on Saturday.
Data compiled by the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) showed Karnataka has reported the highest number of JN.1 cases at 215, followed by Andhra Pradesh (189), Maharashtra (170), Kerala (154), West Bengal (96), Goa (90), Tamil Nadu (88) and Gujarat (76).
Telangana and Rajasthan have recorded 32 JN.1 cases each, Chhattisgarh has recorded 25, Delhi 16, Uttar Pradesh 7, Haryana five, Odisha three, and Uttarakhand and Nagaland one each.
Cases of fresh Covid day-wise continue to be recorded with 441 fresh infections while the number of active cases has come down to 3,238, the Union health ministry. No deaths were reported in a span of 24 hours, according to the ministry’s data updated at 8 am. The number of daily cases was in double digits till December 5 but it began to rise again amid cold weather conditions and after the emergence of a new Covid-19 variant, JN.1.
Since the pandemic began in early 2020, more than 4.5 crore people have been infected and over 5.3 lakh have died across India.
The WHO has said data from various sources pointed to increased transmission last month, fueled by gatherings over the Christmas holiday period and by the JN.1 variant, which is now the most commonly reported around the globe. Although COVID-19 is no longer a global health emergency, the virus is still circulating, changing, and killing,” the UN health agency’s chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
Besides the near 10,000 deaths reported to the WHO last month, there was a 42 percent increase in hospitalizations and a 62 percent increase in intensive care unit admissions, compared with November.
However, the figures are based on data from less than 50 countries, mostly in Europe and the Americas, Tedros said. “It is certain that there are also increases in other countries that are not being reported.”