Omicron Variant LIVE Updates: 11 new Omicron cases reported in Maharashtra, state's tally crosses 60

Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday reported its first Omicron case.The sample was taken on November 30th. RTPCR testing of the entire locality is ordered.

Omicron: 11 more patients found infected in Maharashtra. Out of  these, 8 patients were found through screening at the Mumbai airport and 1 each has been found at Pimpri-Chinchwad, Osmanabad  and Navi Mumbai.   

At least 11 new Omicron cases were reported from Maharashtra on Tuesday, out of which 8 were from Mumbai. This has taken the state's overall Omicron case tally to 65.

"Till now, there are 34 cases of Omicron variant in LNJP hospital.Out of these 34 patients, 17 patients discharged: Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain We will check with the Centre's & private hospitals", said Satyendra Jain, Health Minister Delhi, when asked about MoHFW's claim of 54 cases in the national capital.

Three doses of a Covid vaccine may not be able to curb the rapid spread of the highly transmissible Omicron variant of Covid, warned Ugur Sahin, CEO of Germany-based BioNTech.

Even as Kerala continues to record the highest number of new daily Covid-19 cases in the country for several weeks, State Health Minister Veena George on Tuesday informed that 75 per cent of the population have now taken both the vaccines.

 Delhi on Tuesday  reported 34 new Omicron variant cases in Lok Nayak Jai Prakash (LNJP) Hospital, Health Minister Satyendar Jain said.

Omicron Cases in India

Four passengers from the United Kingdom tested positive for coronavirus after arriving in Goa on Tuesday, state Health Minister Vishwajit Rane said.

In the wake of scare regarding the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, the Goa government has set up a special facility at a primary health centre (PHC) at Cansaulim in South Goa district where COVID-19 patients are kept while their samples are sent for genome sequencing to ascertain if they are infected with the new variant.

At least two people in Odisha have tested positive for the omicron variant of COVID-19, the first case of the latest version of coronavirus in the state, officials said on Tuesday.

A total of 2,109 students in Seoul have tested positive for Covid-19 in the past week, before the partial reintroduction of remote classes against the fast spread of infections, officials said.

According to the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, elementary school virus cases in the capital from December 13 to Sunday stood at 1,248, followed by those in middle schools and kindergartens at 406 and 169, respectively, Yonhap News Agency reported.

Omicron has raced ahead of other variants and is now the dominant version of the coronavirus in the US, accounting for 73 per cent of new infections last week, federal health officials said Monday.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention numbers showed nearly a six-fold increase in omicron's share of infections in only one week.

The US has reported its first death due to the new Omicron variant of the coronavirus in Texas, according to health officials. A man in the US state of Texas, who was in his 50s, was unvaccinated and had previously been infected with COVID-19, according to a release from Harris County Public Health.

Singapore has reported 195 fresh COVID-19 cases, including 45 Omicron infections, while a cluster of the latest variant was detected at a gym studio in an upmarket shopping centre, according to local media reports.

As many as 31 patients out of 54 who have been found infected with the new coronavirus variant Omicron in Maharashtra so far have been discharged from hospitals, a health department official said on Monday.

No fresh case of Omicron, classified as a 'variant of concern' by the WHO, was reported in the state on Monday, keeping the newly discovered strain's tally unchanged at 54, he said.

The tally of Omicron cases in Gujarat rose to 14 on Monday after a 27-year-old woman from Vadodara with travel history to the UK and a couple from Tanzania visiting Ahmedabad were found infected with the new variant of coronavirus, officials said.

The woman became the third case of the Omicron variant in Vadodara, while Gujarat's count rose to 14, they said.

Moderna said Monday that a booster dose of its COVID-19 vaccine should offer protection against the rapidly spreading omicron variant. The company said lab tests showed the half-dose booster shot increased by 37 times the level of so-called neutralizing antibodies able to fight omicron.

And a full-dose booster was even stronger, triggering an 83-fold jump in antibody levels, although with an increase in the usual side effects, Moderna said.