India reported 175 new cases of Omicron on Monday, taking the total number of individuals infected with the heavily mutated Sars-Cov-2 virus across states in the country to 1,700.
The worst affected states include Maharashtra (460), Delhi (351), Gujarat (136), Tamil Nadu (117) and Kerala (109) that have reported at least 100 cases of the recently identified and highly transmissible variant of concern.
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India reported its first two Omicron cases on December 2.
While the central government revised international travel, testing, containment and surveillance guidelines amid concerns over Omicron, states have also begun aggressively implementing measures to curb the spread as Covid cases have begun to rise at a rate consistent with the recent global surge.
At least 81% of the total Covid-19 cases reported over the past two days in the national capital were infected with the Omicron variant. On Monday, 4,099 cases were reported from Delhi, with case positivity reaching almost 6.5%, indicating a rapid spread.
Goa recorded four more cases of the Omicron variant with reports of samples sent to the lab of National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune returning on Monday. “One patient is from within Goa with no travel history indicating indigenous spread which needs to be further examined,” said Goa health minister Vishwajit Rane. With this, Goa’s total Omicron tally touched five.
{{/usCountry}}Goa recorded four more cases of the Omicron variant with reports of samples sent to the lab of National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune returning on Monday. “One patient is from within Goa with no travel history indicating indigenous spread which needs to be further examined,” said Goa health minister Vishwajit Rane. With this, Goa’s total Omicron tally touched five.
{{/usCountry}}The state also reported a big spike in infections, with 631 fresh cases reported while the caseload crossed the 2,000 mark.
Maharashtra reported 68 cases of the Omicron variant. Of them, 40 from Mumbai, 17 from Pune, four from Nagpur, three from Panvel, and one each from Navi Mumbai, Raigad, Satara and Kolhapur tested positive for the new variant. The total number of Omicron cases reached 578 in the state. So far, 259 cases have been discharged following negative RT-PCR test reports.
Jammu & Kashmir has reported three Omicron positive cases. “Only three cases of the Omicron variant were detected in Jammu & Kashmir to date and all of them have recovered fully. All three patients belonged to Jammu city. Two were women from Talab Tillo area and third one was a 15 year old girl, a student of Class 10 at CRPF headquarters in Ban Talab. All three had no history of foreign travel,” said Dr JP Singh, chief medical officer, Jammu.
In West Bengal, 20 Omicron cases were detected till Monday, out of which 14 are active.
On Monday, four international passengers (two from Sweden and two from France) were found to be Covid-19 positive. Their samples have been sent for genome sequencing. The state health department is waiting for genome sequencing reports of 13 passengers as of now.
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Kerala also reported 29 new Omicron cases on Monday, taking the total number of Omicron infected cases to 181. Among 29, at least two people have been infected locally.
The Haryana health department’s data showed 2,284 infections were reported between December 27 and January 2 as compared to 436 the week before. The last the state recorded more than 1,500 infections in a week was during June 14-20 last year, when 1,557 infections were reported during the ebbing period of the devastating second wave.
India held its first high-level meeting to discuss measures that needed to be taken to deal with the heavily mutated new variant soon after the World Health Organization declared Omicron a variant of concern on November 27. South Africa announced Omicron’s presence in its population to the world on November 24.
Experts say the way numbers are rising, the surge appeared to be driven by Omicron. “This is no surprise that it is Omicron as Delta was not spreading this fast. We will have to keep an eye at the rate of hospitalisations now, as even a small percentage can be huge for a country like India,” said Dr GC Khilnani, former head, pulmonary medicine department, All India institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi.