200 Omicron Cases In India, 54 Each For Maharashtra, Delhi

New Delhi, Dec. 21: The number of cases of Covid’s fast-spreading strain Omicron has crossed the 200-mark in India, the Union Health Ministry said today.

Out of them them, 77 patients have recovered or migrated, the ministry added.

Maharashtra and Delhi have reported the highest number of cases of the new variant — 54. They are followed by Telangana (20 cases), Karnataka (19), Rajasthan (18), Kerala (15) and Gujarat (14).

The ministry’s data updated on Tuesday also recorded that India had clocked 5,326 cases of Covid infections over the past 24 hours, the lowest daily case count in 581 days. The total number of Covid cases reported in the country now stands at 3.48 crore. As per the bulletin, there are now 79,097 active cases in the country, the lowest in 574 days.

With 453 deaths over the past 24 hours, the total death count in the pandemic has climbed to 4.78 lakhs.

The Omicron strain of Covid, known to be highly transmissible, has set off alarm bells and stoked grim memories of the devastating second wave of the pandemic that had brought the country’s health infrastructure on its knees.

Delhi, which was among the worst hit in the second wave, clocked 107 cases Sunday, crossing the 100-mark after six months and prompting a meeting of the disaster management authorities.

Following the meeting, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal urged people not to panic and assured that the government had made adequate arrangements to tackle a surge in cases. Pointing out that many were not masking up and had dropped their guard following a drop in cases, he urged residents to keep following Covid norms.

Meanwhile, the Omicron strain is leading to an alarming spike in cases across the world.

In US, the new variant accounts for 73 per cent of all sequenced Covid cases, surging from around 3% last week, according to the latest federal estimates.

The delta variant, which had been the dominant form of the virus in the US last week, has now receded to roughly 27 per cent of sequenced cases.

The World Health Organization has said the Omicron variant is spreading faster than the Delta variant and is causing infections in people already vaccinated or who have recovered from Covid.

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