14 new cases reported, India’s Omicron tally reaches 87

New Delhi, December 17: India reported 14 fresh Omicron cases on Thursday, taking the tally of patients contracting the highly infections coronavirus variant in the country to 87. While Karnataka reported five new cases, Delhi and Telangana saw four each and Gujarat one.

The tally in Karnataka – which had reported the first Omicron case in the country earlier this month – rose to eight with five new cases. While three of them have international travel history, the other two returned from Delhi, leading to concerns of community spread of the variant in India. All the five had taken two doses of Covid-19 vaccine and are not suffering from severe disease, said health officials.

Telangana’s count rose to six even as experts said that a glaring loophole in the state government’s policy of not putting Covid-19 positive patients in institutional quarantine could help spread Omicron rapidly in the state. Of the four new cases, three are international passengers who landed at the Hyderabad airport from Kenya, a ‘non-risk’ country, while the fourth passenger of Indian origin returned from the UK, notified as an “at-risk” country. In Gujarat, a 43-year-old ASHA worker based in Vijapur town of Mehsana district was confirmed as the fifth Omicron case in the state.

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