With the Omicron variant of Covid-19 spreading fast, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Thursday reviewed the coronavirus disease situation and the preparedness to tackle it in the country. India on Wednesday totalled 226 Omicron cases with Delhi topping the list.
This is for the first time that the Prime Minister will be holding a meeting to deliberate on the rising Omicron scare which has spread in more than 11 States so far.
The national Capital now leads the tally with 57 cases, followed by Maharashtra, which has reported 54 cases of the new variant till now. Apart from Delhi and Maharashtra, the fast-spreading Omicron strain has seen a rise in Telangana (24), Karnataka (19), Rajasthan (22), Kerala (24) and Gujarat (14).
Kerala on Wednesday recorded nine more Omicron cases and Jaipur four.
Three cases have been reported in Jammu & Kashmir and two each in Odisha and Uttar Pradesh. Andhra Pradesh, Chandigarh, Ladakh, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal have reported one case each.
The PM has held such review meetings in the past too. In the last review meeting in the end of November, Modi had asked officials to review plans to ease restrictions on international travel in light of the global concern over Omicron, which was discovered in South Africa. The PM asked officials to be “pro-active” in light of the new variant. However, the Omicron strain of Covid, known to be highly transmissible, has set off alarm bells, prompting the Union Health Ministry on Tuesday to alert States and Union Territories about the new variant.
It said that based on the current scientific evidence, Omicron is at least three times more transmissible than the Delta variant.
The Ministry further added greater foresight, data analysis, dynamic decision making and strict and prompt containment action is required at the local and district level.
It also asked the States to activate “war rooms” and bring back curbs, including night curfews to contain it. It also listed a series of prevention and containment measures that included extensive testing and regulation of gatherings.
The letter from the Ministry called for “prompt and focused and take containment measures and restrictions even before these thresholds are reached”.
Besides Omicron, the Delta variant is “still present” in different parts of the country, the letter read.
India’s coronavirus tally has reached 3,47,58,481 on Wednesday after the country reported 6,317new infections, which is a jump of 18 per cent from Wednesday’s 5,326 cases.
The active cases have declined to 78,190, the lowest in 575 days. With 318 deaths over the past 24 hours, the total death count in the pandemic has climbed to 4.78 lakhs.