4,099 fresh cases in Delhi, 12,160 in Maha; India's daily spike reaches 33,750
The Covid-19 is marching relentlessly across the country with each day total case count registering new high and the situation turning for the worse in States like Delhi and Maharashtra. On Monday, Delhi registered 4,099 fresh cases of Covid-19 and one death in the past 24 hours. The positivity rate has increased to 6.5 per cent from 4.59 per cent recorded Sunday.
On the other hand, Maharashtra recorded 12,160 Covid-19 cases, taking the total number of cases from 66,99,868 cases to 67,12,028 cases. Similarly, the State recorded 68 Omicron cases, taking the total number of Covid-19 variant cases from 510 cases to 578 cases.
While 33,750 Covid-19 infections were reported from across the country during the last 24 hours on Monday, the Omicron tally breached 1,700 marks of which 639 people have recovered. According to an estimate, cases of the virus nearly tripled in the week ending Sunday as compared with the previous seven days, registering an unprecedented rise of 181 per cent rise during the period. Covid-cases on Monday were 22 per cent higher than Sunday, while 123 died due to the virus in a day.
The variant of concern has spread to 23 States. Maharashtra topped the Omicron list with 510 cases followed by Delhi (351) Kerala (156), Gujarat (136), Tamil Nadu (121) and Rajasthan (120).
Bihar also reported the highest weekly percentage increase, with cases going from 85 in the December 20-26 week to 1,073, a 12-fold rise although the absolute numbers were low as yet while Bengal recorded the second highest weekly number of cases at 18,524, up more than fivetimes the previous week’s tally of 3,550.
Jharkhand numbers also leaped by nearly nine times to 2,879, from 326. Other States where this week’s cases were at least five times higher than the preceding one included Gujarat (4,410 cases), Uttar Pradesh (1,617), Rajasthan (1,403), Chhattisgarh (1,133) and Haryana (2,285).
World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was optimistic that the Covid-19 pandemic will end in 2022 only if inequity ends. In a statement on Friday, Ghebreyesus said “as we enter the third year of the Covid-19 pandemic, I’m confident that this will be the year we end it, but only if we do it together”.
Meanwhile, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain said that in the last few days, 187 reports of genome sequencing have come, and out of these 187 samples, a total of 152 people were found omicron positive. “Omicron is now the dominant variant in Delhi; around 81 per cent of cases in Delhi are of the Omicron variant,” Jain added.
The Minister said that if the international flights had been banned in time, Omicron would not have spread in Delhi. “The people arriving at Delhi Airport coming from abroad are being tested and are being sent to isolation facilities if tested positive and are being treated accordingly,” he added.
Jain stated, “The Delhi Government is ready to fight any variant of the Coronavirus with full force. There are adequate numbers of beds available. Almost 100 per cent of people are vaccinated with the first dose and around 75 per cent of the people in Delhi are vaccinated with the second dose. The children between the ages of 15-18 are being vaccinated from Monday. There is no need to panic. The only way to stop the spread of the virus is to always wear a mask at all times when you are heading outside your house and follow all the covid related protocols at all times. Prevention is better than cure. I urge people to get vaccinated as soon as possible.”
In Maharashtra, amid the surge in the Covid-19 and Omicron cases, the authorities announced that schools for standard 1 to 9 would remain closed in Mumbai and neighbouring Thane till January 31.
Mumbai Municipal Commissioner I S Chahal and Thane district collector Rajesh Narvekar made separate announcements about the closure of all schools in Mumbai and Thane for standard 1 to 9 from January 4, 2022 to January 31, even as Mumbai recorded 8082 Covid-19 cases and 40 Omicron cases while Thane registered 2084 Covid-19 cases and went blank on the Omicron front. However, the classes for standard 10 and 12 would continue.
As 1748 patients were discharged from the hospitals across the State after full recovery, the total number of people discharged from the hospitals since the second week of March last year increased from 65,12,610 cases to 65,14,358 cases . The recovery rate in the State dropped from 97.21 per cent to 97.05 per cent.
The number of “active cases” in the State increased from 42,024 cases to 52,422 cases. The fatality rate in the State dropped from 2.11 per cent to 2.1 per cent.
Mumbai accounted for a maximum of 37,274 cases, while there were 6309 active cases in Thane. There were 3808 active cases in Pune, followed by Palghar (1080), Raigad (980), Nashik (691),, Ahmednagar (346), Nagpur (406) and Satara (336).
Of the 6,93,70,095 +samples sent to various laboratories across the State so far, 67,12,028 have tested positive (9.68 per cent) for COVID-19 until Monday.
Currently, 3,32,610 people are in-home quarantine while 1,096 people are in institutional quarantine.
Meanwhile, the State recorded 68 cases of Omicron, taking the total number of new Covid-19 variant cases to 578 cases. Of the new Omicron cases reported on Monday, 34 have been reported by the National Institute of Virology (NIV) while 34 cases were reported by National Chemical Laboratory (NCL).
Of the 68 omicron cases reported in the state on Sunday, Mumbai accounted for a maximum of 40 cases, followed by Pune Municipal Corporation (14), Nagpur (4) Pune rural, and Panvel- 3 each, Kolhapur, Navi Mumbai, Raigad and Satara- 1 each.
In a related development, the authorities said the total number of passengers who arrived at Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur airports since December 1 was 2,23,630 (32,705 from At-risk countries and rest 1,90,925 are from other countries), while passengers whose RT-PC tests have been done are 51,735 (32,705 are from high-risk countries and 19030 are from other countries). Similarly, RT-PCR positive and samples sent for genomic sequencing was 490( 302 are from at-risk countries and 188 are from other countries).