With 77 new cases, India’s Omicron tally crosses 500
Maharashtra has reported 141 cases — the most in the country — followed by 79 cases in Delhi.
The number of infections of the Omicron variant of Sars-CoV-2 detected across India on Sunday soared past the 500-mark, even as more than 150 of these cases have already recovered, data compiled across states showed.
A total of 77 new cases of the heavily mutated variant were reported on Sunday, as the number of state and Union territories that have reported Omicron infections has now touched 19, with two new regions – Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh – joining the list on Sunday.
The national tally of Omicron cases now stands at 508 — Maharashtra has reported 141 cases (the most in the country), followed by 79 cases in Delhi, Kerala has seen 57 infections, Gujarat has 49, Telangana 44, Tamil Nadu 34, Karnataka 31, Rajasthan 23, Haryana 10, Madhya Pradesh nine, Odisha eight, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal have reported six each, while Chandigarh and J&K have three each, followed by UP at two, and one each in Ladakh, Uttarakhand, and Himachal Pradesh.
The number of people who have recovered from recovered from Omicron infections, meanwhile, touched 153, data showed.
On Friday, Union health ministry had said that a government analysis of 183 Omicron cases in India found that 70% of the infected are asymptomatic and the rest have mild symptoms.
Expert across the world have pointed out that people infected with the Omicron variant are less likely to require hospital admission, with a small proportion among them showing symptoms and those too likely to be mild. They have said the new Sars-CoV-2 variant may be less severe in people with past infection and those vaccinated, when compared to the Delta variant.
“Regarding infection with Omicron, it does not necessarily lead to severe symptomatic clinical disease. In India, about a third of all detected cases were mildly symptomatic and the rest were asymptomatic; therefore, the treatment for Omicron-infected symptomatic individuals remains the same,” said Balram Bhargava, director general, ICMR on Friday.
