India records 101 Omicron cases in 11 states, says govt

The Union Health Ministry on Friday said that the country has crossed 100-mark in Omicron cases, the new and highly contagious virus strain. There are 101 Omicron cases across 11 states in the country, the ministry said.

Earlier today, 10 new cases of the variant Omicron were detected in Delhi and two more in Telangana.

Lav Agrawal, Joint Secretary, Health Ministry said in a press conference informed that Omicron variant has been reported in 91 countries in the world. Citing World Health Organisation (WHO), he added, "WHO has said that Omicron is spreading faster than the Delta variant in South Africa where Delta circulation was low. The UN agency also added that it's likely that the variant will outpace Delta variant where community transmission occurs."

Warning of the rise in Omicron cases in the country, Director-General of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Dr Balram Bhargava instructed that this is the time to avoid non-essential travel, mass gatherings and it is very important to observe low-intensity festivities.

Elaborating on the Omicron threat further, Dr VK Paul, Member-Health, Niti Aayog also shared that a new phase of the Covid-19 pandemic is being experienced in Europe with a steep rise in cases.

Paul also added that genome sequencing of every sample is not possible. "It is a surveillance and pandemic assessment and tracking tool, not a diagnostic tool as of now. We can assure sufficient systematic sampling is being undertaken."

Besides this, the ICMR DG also informed that discussions on anti-viral Covid-19 pills as a gamechanger are on. "We have been discussing these anti-viral COVID19 pills. 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," Bhargava said.

Meanwhile, Aggarwal also informed that apart from Omicron cases, the past 20 days have recorded below 10,000 cases.

He said, "The case positivity for the last 1 week was 0.65 per cent, adding that currently, Kerala contributes 40.31 per cent to the total number of active cases."

Moreover, on the Covid-19 vaccination front, the health ministry informed that India is administering 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 UK.

Giving clearer statistics, Agarwal said that 87.6 per cent of population covered with first dose while 57.2 per cent citizens have been administered both the doses.