India’s Omicron tally mounts to 1,270

New YorkDelhi (TIP)- India‘s Omicron count crossed the 1,000-mark as the highly-mutated variant of the coronavirus continues to spread at an alarming rate across the country, according to the Union ministry of health and family welfare on Friday.

The health ministry said there were 1,270 cases of Omicron detected so far from 23 states and Union territories, adding 374 of those patients have been discharged.

Maharashtra and Delhi are leading the Omicron tally and have reported 450 and 320 cases respectively. On Thursday night, Bihar became the latest state to report a case of the new variant.

Meanwhile, India’s daily tally of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) also continued to spike for a third consecutive day after 16,764 cases were recorded in the last 24 hours, pushing the caseload to 34,838,804, according to the health ministry’s update.

More than 7,500 patients recovered and 220 succumbed to the viral disease, taking the cumulative count of recoveries and deaths to 34,266,363 and 481,080 respectively. Active cases of Covid-19 are up by nearly 9,000 and stand at 91,361, the health ministry also said.

According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), 1,250,837 samples were tested for Covid-19 in the last 24 hours and the total number has climbed to 677,878,255.

The country’s vaccination coverage has exceeded 1.44 billion with 6,665,290 doses administered in the last 24 hours. The health ministry informed on Thursday that 90 per cent of the adult population has been inoculated with the first dose.

More than 1.5 billion vaccine doses have been provided to states and Union Territories (UTs) so far through the Centre’s free of cost channel and direct state procurement category, the ministry said on Friday.

It also added that nearly 170 million balance and unutilised vaccine doses are still available with the states and UTs to be administered.

14 cities in 8 states on govt’s Omicron watch

The Union government wrote to eight states and Union territories, asking them to enhance testing, strengthen hospital preparedness, and accelerate vaccinations after cities in their territories recorded a sharp surge in new Covid-19 cases, which officials said is likely to be because of the Omicron variant.

“We believe what we are witnessing is possibly part of the global rise in cases pushed by the Omicron variant,” said Niti Aayog member (Health) VK Paul, while speaking at the Union health ministry’s press briefing on Covid-19.

“We are aware that this variant is highly transmissible. Its severity is uncertain – it is hopefully mild but we cannot take that for granted,” he said, adding that the government urges people not to panic.

“As a nation we are prepared and have experience, and we have a massive shield of good vaccine coverage. I repeat, no need to panic. But there is a need to be responsible, to be prepared, to be disciplined.”                Source: HT

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