Record rise in Delhi’s Omicron cases takes India's tally to 781

New Delhi: National Capital Delhi is now way ahead of other states with the detection of 238 Omicron cases, taking the overall tally to 781 in the country. The highly transmissible variant has now been detected in 21 states with Delhi leading the charts followed by Maharashtra and Gujarat.

The distribution of cases across states is as follows: Delhi tops the chart with 238 cases, Maharashtra follows with 167 cases, 73 in Gujarat, 65 in Kerala, 62 in Telangana, 46 in Rajasthan, 34 in Tamil Nadu, 34 in Karnataka, 12 in Haryana, 11 in West Bengal, 9 in Madhya Pradesh, 8 in Odisha, 6 in Andhra Pradesh, 4 in Uttarakhand and 3 in Chandigarh and Jammu & Kashmir, 2 in Uttar Pradesh and one each in Himachal Pradesh, Ladakh, Manipur and Goa.
Most of the cases reported in the country have remained asymptomatic but are under observation to detect any adverse symptoms. No Omicron case in Delhi, which reported the maximum number of cases, required oxygen support so far. 72 in Maharashtra have now been discharged, 57 patients in Delhi, 30 in Rajasthan and 17 in Gujarat have recovered from the virus taking the total number of recoveries from the variant to 241.

India reported a 44 per cent rise with 9,195 fresh COVID-19 cases recorded in the last 24 hours. This takes the active caseload to 77,002 cases. 7,347 recoveries in the last 24 hours take the recovery rate to 98.40 per cent, highest since March 2020. Cumulative vaccine coverage has crossed 143.15 Crore in the country as the Union Government expedited focus on increasing the vaccination pace amidst rising cases.

The National Capital on Tuesday activated Yellow Alert, imposing restrictions on gatherings, travel and other public activities amidst a rapid rise in COVID cases. Apart from leading the Omicron tally, Delhi also reported 496 positive cases in the last 24 hours which is a steep rise from cases reported in the past days.

Maharashtra reported 2,172 cases with 1,333 cases in Mumbai, the highest cases reported since May. Maharashtra’s Health Minister Rajesh Tope informed that more restrictions would be imposed in the state if the positivity rate crosses 5 per cent which currently stands at 4 per cent.

Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan held a meeting with officials from five-poll bound states and advised ramping up inoculation in low-coverage areas to fully vaccinate the entire population. The five poll-bound states have been asked to ramp up testing to identify and isolate a positive case before it spreads further.

The Election Commission along with the Health Secretary recommended vaccination programmes to speed up inoculation in the five states with elections in the near future- Uttarakhand, Goa, Manipur, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab.

Highlighting that the COVID is here to stay and we must learn to live with it, World Health Organization (WHO) Chief Soumya Swaminathan advised against asking people to stay indoors or keeping schools and colleges shut as it causes more damage than the pandemic itself. The chief scientist, like most other health experts, recommended Covid-Appropriate Behaviour and vaccination as the way forward against COVID and its variants.

COVID-19 case numbers have gone up by 11 percent in the last week, with a rapid spike being witnessed in countries due to Omicron. The new variant has already overtaken the previously dominant Delta variant in most countries, the WHO said in its weekly epidemiological update.