Centre writes to States, UTs for measures
Mumbai and Delhi on Thursday once again saw a massive spike in Covid-19 surge, driven by Omicron variant. The same alarming trend has been reported in eight States, 14 cities and districts, prompting the Centre to write to affected States to take immediate measures.
While Delhi and Mumbai have shown the maximum spike, other cities, including Gurugram, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Ahmedabad too have reported sharp surge taking the total caseload on Thursday to 13,154 fresh Covid cases and 268 deaths in a span of 24 hours.
While Delhi reported 1,313 new cases on Thursday, Mumbai logged 3,555 new cases.
The Omicron infection tally too showed no let-up as it climbed to 961 across the nation. However, out of total Omicron positive, 320 have been discharged from hospitals. Fortunately, there has been no casualty reported so far due to the new variant in the country which has spread to 22 States.
About 423 recoveries in the last 24 hours were reported in Delhi and the positivity rate is at 1.73 per cent. The active cases are at 3,081, while the total recoveries are 14,18,22.
The Delhi Government has issued an order to the effect that international passengers testing Covid -19 positive upon their arrival at Delhi airport will have to isolate at designated paid and free facilities, including hotels and districts’ Covid care centres.
“In compliance with the guidelines for international arrivals dated November 30, 2021, issued by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, based on the risk assessment, it is informed that the institutional isolation of Covid-19 positive passengers/ contacts arriving at the IGI airport, New Delhi, from foreign countries, will henceforth be done at the designated paid and free facilities,” the DGHS order read.
Teams deputed at the Delhi airport will transfer the patients accordingly.
In another order, of Health and Family Welfare Department, the Delhi Government ordered to link Covid Care Centres (CCC) with different city hospitals.
Meanwhile, the health authorities in Maharashtra went into a tizzy on Thursday, as Omicron claimed first death in the State. The Covid-19 cases jumped from 3,900 cases to 5,368 and the Omicron variant infections rose from 85 cases to 198 cases during the last 24 hours in various parts of the State.
A 52-year-old man with a travel history to Nigeria died of a heart attack on December 28 at Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation’s Hospital. This patient had diabetes for the last 13 years. The death of this patient is due to non-Covid reasons.
“Coincidently, today’s NIV report reveals that he was infected with the Omicron virus,” a bulletin by the State Public Health department stated.
As the State reeled under a threat of a third pandemic wave, the Covid-19 cases went up by 1,468 cases, while the Omicron cases more than doubled from 75 cases on Wednesday to an alarming 190 cases on Thursday. The Covid-19 deaths went up from 20 to 22 during the last 24 hours.
Mumbai bore the maximum brunt of the pandemic, as the Covid-19 infections jumped by 3,555 cases and the metropolis recorded 190 Omicron infections out of a total 198 cases registered in the entire State.
With 5,368 fresh infections, the total Covid-19 cases went up from 66,65,386 to 66,70,754, while the Omicron cases - with an addition of 198 fresh cases - rose from 252 cases to 450 cases in what is being seen as a mind-boggling increase in 24 hours.
As 1,193 patients were discharged from the hospitals across the State after full recovery, the total number of people discharged from the hospitals since the second week of March last year increased from 65,06,137 cases 65,07,330. The recovery rate in the State dropped from 97.61 per cent to 95.55 per cent.
The number of “active cases” in the State increased 14,065 to 18,217 cases. The fatality rate in the State stood static at 2.12 per cent.
Mumbai accounted for a maximum of 11,360 cases, while there were 2,226 active cases in Pune. There were 2,017 active cases in Thane, followed by Nashik (49), Raigad (378), Ahmednagar (361), Palghar (317), Satara (199) and Nagpur (168).
Of the 6,88,87,303 samples sent to various laboratories across the State so far, 66,70,754 have tested positive (9.68 per cent) for Covid-19 until Thursday.
Currently, 1,33,748 people are in home quarantine while 1,078 people are in institutional quarantine.
Meanwhile, the State recorded an all-time of 198 cases of Omicron, taking the total number of new Covid-19 variant cases to 450 cases.
All the 198 Omicron recorded in the state have been reported from National Institute of Virology (NIV).
Warning that the increase of Covid-19 cases in India could be part of the global rise pushed by Omicron, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan has written to the Health Secretaries of Haryana, Delhi, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Karnataka, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra. Bhushan directed these States to take measures such as enhance testing, strengthen hospital-level preparedness, increase pace and coverage of vaccination as there has been an increase in Covid cases and lessening of doubling time.
The Center has also directed the States to enhance the testing in a focused manner with maintaining the ratio between RT-PCR and Rapid Antigen Test (RAT). The States have been advised to go for proactive contact tracing and isolation and quarantine of the contacts of positive cases, their testing and follow up.
The States have also been told to speed up the Covid vaccination coverage along with enforcing the Covid Appropriate Behaviour.
“There is an uptick which has been witnessed in the last few days as India’s daily cases jumped from around 6,000 on Tuesday to around 9,000 Wednesday to over 13,000 on Thursday,” Niti Aayog member (health) Dr VK Paul said at a Press briefing here on Thursday.
“The present R-value in India is 1.22 which means cases are increasing and not shrinking. Deaths are stable in India as of now which is reassuring. It could be part of the global rise in cases pushed by Omicron, we believe. We are updating you on available information.
“It takes time to identify the variant. We will continue to update you on the specifics of this. Omicron is a highly transmissible variant that perhaps explains the speed of the rise in the cases. The severity issue of the variant is unsettled. Hopefully, it remains mild but can’t be taken for granted,” Dr Paul said
As of now, Delhi and Maharashtra are the two States most affected by Omicron, among the 19 States where the variant has made an appearance. But Omicron cases are also increasing rapidly in Bengaluru and Ahmedabad. The variant has now been detected from 22 States and Union territories.
Among other States, Rajasthan and Kerala have reported 69 and 65 Omicron cases respectively. In Telangana, 62 people have so far tested positive for the variant while in Tamil Nadu the count stood at 45. Karnataka has logged 34 cases.
Andhra Pradesh (16 cases), Haryana (12 cases) and West Bengal (11 cases) have all so far seen less than 20 infections of the variant.
Meanwhile, 320 of the 961 Omicron patients have been discharged, the ministry’s data showed.
The count remained in single digits in Madhya Pradesh (9 cases), Odisha (9 cases), Uttarakhand (4 cases), Chandigarh (3 cases), Jammu and Kashmir (3 cases), Uttar Pradesh (2 cases), Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Ladakh, Manipur and Punjab (1 case each).
