The health ministry, in a statement, said multi-disciplinary central teams will be deployed in Maharashtra, Bengal and 8 other states which have reported a high number of COVID cases amid Omicron scare. India’s Omicron tally crossed 400-mark on Saturday.
New Delhi: The Centre on Saturday said multi-disciplinary central teams will be deployed in ten states which have reported a high number of COVID-19 Omicron cases. The central teams will be deployed in Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Kerala, Mizoram, Karnataka, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Punjab.
A decision has been taken to deploy multi-disciplinary central teams to 10 identified states some of which are either reporting an increasing number of #Omicron and COVID-19 cases or slow vaccination pace,” the Union health ministry said in an official statement, news agency ANI reported.
These teams, which will be stationed for three-five days, will work in coordination with the state health authorities, the health ministry said in the announcement.
India’s Omicron tally crossed the 400-mark with the maximum number of the new variant cases reporting from Maharashtra. A total of 415 cases of Omicron variant of coronavirus have been detected in India so far, out of which 115 have recovered or migrated, according to the Union Health Ministry’s data updated on Saturday.
COVID-19: Omicron in India | Top developments
- Maharashtra topped the list of Omicron tally in the country with 108 cases while Delhi came second with 70 Omicron cases.
- Gujarat came third with 43 Omicron cases followed by Telangana (38), Kerala (37) and Tamil Nadu (34).
- Karnakata has reported 31 Omicron cases so far and Rajasthan logged 22 Omicron cases. Four Omicron cases each were reported in Haryana, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh while three cases each in West Bengal and Jammu and Kashmir.
- Chandigarh, Ladakh and Uttarakhand had each reported only case of Omicron till now.
- India’s Covid tally rose to 3,47,79,815 with 7,189 fresh cases in the last 24 hours, while the active cases have declined to 77,032, according to the data updated at 8 am.
- The death toll climbed to 4,79,520 with 387 more fatalities, the data showed.
- The daily rise in new coronavirus cases has been recorded below 15,000 for the last 58 days now.
- The active cases have declined to 77,032 comprising 0.22 per cent of the total infections, the lowest since March 2020, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 98.40 per cent, the highest since March 2020, the ministry said.
- A decrease of 484 cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours.
- The daily positivity rate was recorded at 0.65 per cent. It has been less than two per cent for the last 82 days.
- The weekly positivity rate was also recorded at 0.60 per cent. It has been below one per cent for the last 41 days, according to the Health Ministry.
- The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 3,42,23,263, while the case fatality rate was recorded at 1.38 per cent.
- A total of 4,79,520 deaths have been reported so far in the country, including 1,41,404 from Maharashtra, 46,203 from Kerala, 38,305 from Karnataka, 36,714 from Tamil Nadu, 25,103 from Delhi, 22,915 from Uttar Pradesh and 19,707 from West Bengal.
- The Health Ministry stressed that more than 70 per cent of the deaths occurred due to comorbidities.
- The cumulative doses administered in the country so far under the nationwide COVID-19 vaccination drive has exceeded 141.01 crore.
- The government on Friday cautioned people against lowering the guard, particularly during year-end festivities, even as it underlined that infection due to Omicron does not necessarily lead to severe symptomatic disease.
- Addressing a joint press conference, ICMR Director-General Dr Balram Bhargava said Delta continues to be the predominant strain in India, including in the recently identified clusters.
- Asserting the Omicron variant of coronavirus does not necessarily lead to severe symptomatic clinical disease, Bhargava said in India, about a third of all the detected cases were mildly symptomatic, and the rest were asymptomatic.
- The ICMR DG said the treatment for for Omicron-infected patients remains the same. “I want to emphasize that the treatment for Omicron-infected symptomatic individuals remains the same. It does not change from that for Delta, Alpha or the Beta variant,” Bhargava said.
- Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan had a word of caution. “The world is witnessing the fourth surge of COVID-19 cases and the overall positivity is 6.1 per cent. Therefore, we have to be on guard and we can’t afford to slacken.”
