The Omicron variant of the coronavirus is “spreading rapidly” with 11 States reporting altogether 107 cases. The Health Ministry has warned that 19 districts were at high risk of a surge in Covid-19 cases. The national Capital reported ten more Omicron cases on Friday, taking its tally to 20.
The Ministry also urged people to avoid non-essential travel and stay away from large crowds and gatherings. The Ministry’s caution comes in the wake of approaching Christmas and New Year celebrations. Globally the variant has been detected in 91 countries.
The Ministry also pointed out that the districts with over 5 per cent Covid positivity rate will have to mandatorily ensure that restrictive measures were followed for at least two weeks unless the rate comes down below 5 per cent.
Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain said 10 new cases of the new Covid variant Omicron have been detected in the national Capital, taking the tally to 20. Ten of these patients have been discharged, he said.
The Minister said 10 out of the 40 samples sent for genome sequencing tested positive for the new variant. The Minister had on Thursday said many international travellers are turning out Covid positive upon arrival at the Indira Gandhi International Airport.
Maharashtra on Friday recorded eight more Omicron cases, taking the total number of the new Covid-19 variant cases in the State to 40. A report released by the Pune-based National Institute of Virology (NIV) said that of the eight news cases, six cases were from Pune, while one case each from Mumbai and the twin townships of Dombivli-Kalyan in the neighbouring Thane district. Of the total 40 Omicron cases recorded so far, Mumbai accounted for 14, followed by Pimpri-Chinchwad where 10 cases have been found. There are in all six cases in Pune, while Kalyan-Dombivali and Osmanabad have recorded two cases each. Latur, Buldhana, Nagpuir and Vasai-Virar have registered one case each.
Warning against lowering the guard in the wake of Omicron transmission, ICMR DG Dr Balram Bhargava told reporters that “this is the time to avoid non-essential travel, mass gatherings and it is very important to observe low-intensity festivities.”
Maharashtra — the worst-hit Covid State — has recorded the maximum number of Omicron cases — 40, followed by Delhi (20), Rajasthan (17), Karnataka (8), Telangana (8), Gujarat (5), Kerala (5), Andhra Pradesh (1), Chandigarh (1), Tamil Nadu (1) and West Bengal (1).
Citing the WHO warning on the fast transmission of the new mutated variant, Health Ministry Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal said that it’s likely that Omicron will outpace Delta variant where community transmission occurs.
“There is no evidence to suggest that vaccines are not effective against Omicron variant of coronavirus,” he added and assured that sufficient systematic and strategic sampling is being undertaken for genome sequencing for detection of Omicron cases in India.
On Covid front, the official said, “Maharashtra continues to account for more than 55% of the total active cases. A total of 99,763 active cases were recorded across the country as of December 2. Around 15 districts across the country have more than 10% positivity rate, whereas 18 districts have positivity ranging between 5-10%. These are still a matter of concern for us, we are continuously in talks with those States.”
The case positivity for the last one week is 0.65 per cent. Currently, Kerala contributes 40.31 per cent to the total number of active cases in the country, he pointed out. Agarwal further said that daily cases in India have stayed below 10,000 for the past 20 days, while the positivity rate has been recorded at 0.65% for the past 1 week.
Dr Bhargava said that we have been discussing anti-viral Covid-19 pills and added that we have found that these pills need to be given very early, even before the diagnosis of the disease. “Scientific data is still not supported in a big way that the pills will be useful at the moment,” he added.
On Covid-19 vaccination, Agarwal said, “India is administering Covid-19 vaccine doses at the highest rate in the world and the daily rate of doses administered is 4.8 times the rate of doses administered in the USA and 12.5 times the rate of doses administered in the United Kingdom.”
India has so far administered 82.8 crore first doses and 53.72 crore second doses. Overall, more than 136 crore doses have been administered in the country which is 2.8 times the total doses administered in the US, it said.
India logged 7,447 new coronavirus infections taking the total tally of Covid-19 cases to 3,47,26,049, while the active cases declined to 86,415, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Friday. The death toll climbed to 4,76,869 with 391 fresh fatalities, according to the data updated at 8 a.m. A decline of 830 cases has been recorded in the active Covid-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours.