Omicron variant Updates: Maharashtra records 35,756 fresh Covid cases, 79 deaths

Gearing up to present its annual financial statement for 2022-23 as Swaraj Budget, the Delhi government has received over 1,000 suggestions on different aspects of boosting the economy of the city that has been hit by disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, officials said on Wednesday. The Delhi government is also going to engage interns to work on framing the budget which is likely to be presented in the assembly in March, an officials said.

The coronavirus caseload in Gujarat on Wednesday crossed the 11 lakh-mark with addition of 14,781 new cases, the state health department said. The tally of infections in the state reached 11,07,749. With 21 patients succumbing to the viral infection during the day, the death toll reached 10,323.

Maharashtra today recorded 35, 756 fresh covid cases and 79 deaths in the last 24 hours. Out of 7,38,67,385 laboratory samples 76,05,181 have been tested positive (10.3%) for COVID-19 until today. Currently 15,47,643 people are in home quarantine and 3,298 people are in institutional quarantine.

Kerala logged 49,771 fresh COVID-19 cases on Wednesday taking the caseload to 57,74,857, while the death toll rose to 52,281 with 140 COVID-19-related deaths being registered. On Tuesday, the state had recorded 55,475 fresh cases, the highest ever single day spike in the infection since the outbreak of the pandemic in 2020. The previous highest ever in a single day was recorded on January 20- 46,387.

Delhi reported 7,498 fresh COVID-19 cases and 29 deaths, with the positivity rate witnessing a marginal increase to 10.59 per cent, according to data shared by the city government’s health department on Wednesday. On Tuesday, the national capital had reported 6,028 new Covid cases and 31 deaths. The positivity was recorded at 10.55 per cent.

The World Health Organisation said there were 21 million new coronavirus cases reported globally last week, the highest weekly number of COVID-19 cases recorded since the pandemic began. The number of deaths was largely unchanged, at more than 50,000.

The number of active Covid-19 cases in Delhi has halved in just 12 days after rising to a high of 94,160 on January 13, while it took 21 days for the active caseload to drop by half during the second wave last year. The third wave of the pandemic saw the active cases peaking to 94,160 on January 13. The number dropped to 42,010 by Tuesday.

The price of Covishield and Covaxin, the Covid vaccines which are expected to soon get regular market approval from India's drug regulator, is likely to be capped at Rs 275 per dose plus an additional service charge of Rs 150, official sources said. According to them, the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has been directed to start working towards capping the price to make the vaccines affordable.

An ICMR study has demonstrated that individuals infected with Omicron have significant immune response which could neutralise not only the Omicron, but also other variants of concern, including the most prevalent Delta variant. It suggests that the immune response induced by the Omicron could effectively neutralise the Delta variant, making the re-infection with Delta variant less likely, thereby displacing the Delta as dominant strain, the study said emphasising upon the need for Omicron-specific vaccine strategy.

Although COVID-19 cases are showing a downward trend in the big cities, the ICU admissions and deaths are being driven by patients with comorbidities, people who are immunocompromised, and the aged. The current figures of new COVID-19 cases stand at 2,85,914 with 665 deaths and 2,99,073 recoveries in the last 24 hours. The positivity rate dipped to 15.52 per cent yesterday, however it rose to 16.16 per cent in the last 24 hours.

An international team of scientists has determined the precise structural changes in the spike protein of the Omicron variant. Their observations explain how the virus is able to evade antibodies against previous variants and still remain highly infectious. "The findings provide a blueprint that researchers can use to design new countermeasures, whether they be vaccines or therapeutics, against omicron and other coronavirus variants that may emerge," said David Veesler, Associate Professor of biochemistry at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle. A The researchers report their findings in the journal Science. The Omicron variant, which was first identified in November 2021 in South Africa, is causing a surge of infections around the world. In addition to being highly infectious, the variant can evade antibodies against earlier variants leading to breakthrough infections among those who have been vaccinated and those who have been infected previously.

The latest study conducted by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) shows that antibodies generated by Omicron, a COVID-19 strain, are not only effective against it but also other variants of concern (VOCs) including Delta."The individuals infected with Omicron have significant immune response which could neutralize not only the Omicron but also the other VOCs including most prevalent Delta variant," a study by ICMR has revealed."This suggests that the immune response induced by the Omicron could effectively neutralize the Delta variant making the re-infection with Delta less likely, thereby displacing the Delta as dominant strain. This emphasizes the need for the Omicron specific vaccine strategy," it further said.In this study, the ICMR has analyzed the IgG and neutralizing antibodies (NAbs) against B.1, Alpha, Beta, Delta and Omicron variants with the sera of individuals infected with the Omicron variant (B.1.1529 and BA.1) as currently India is facing the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mongolia recorded 3,080 new local infections of Covid-19 in the last 24 hours, raising the national tally to 434,735, the country's health ministry said on Wednesday. Among the latest confirmed cases, 1,815 were detected in the national capital Ulan Bator, which is home to over half of the country's population of 3.4 million. Meanwhile, two more Covid patients died in the past day, bringing the pandemic death toll to 2,027, the ministry said. Currently, there are a total of 69,375 active Covid cases across the country. Omicron cases currently account for over 90 per cent of the daily total in the country, according to the National Center for Communicable Diseases. So far, 66.7 per cent of the country's total population have received two Covid vaccine doses, while 1,000,344 people have received a third dose. More than 73,400 Mongolians have received a fourth dose, which the country started to administer on January 7 on a voluntary basis.

Mongolia recorded 3,080 new local infections of Covid-19 in the last 24 hours, raising the national tally to 434,735, the country's health ministry said on Wednesday. Among the latest confirmed cases, 1,815 were detected in the national capital Ulan Bator, which is home to over half of the country's population of 3.4 million. Meanwhile, two more Covid patients died in the past day, bringing the pandemic death toll to 2,027, the ministry said. Currently, there are a total of 69,375 active Covid cases across the country. Omicron cases currently account for over 90 per cent of the daily total in the country, according to the National Center for Communicable Diseases. So far, 66.7 per cent of the country's total population have received two Covid vaccine doses, while 1,000,344 people have received a third dose. More than 73,400 Mongolians have received a fourth dose, which the country started to administer on January 7 on a voluntary basis.

Pakistan reported 5,196 COVID cases in the last 24 hours as per the National Command and Operation Centre, with Islamabad reporting 1,836 cases, the highest since the outbreak.Furthermore, 15 more patients of COVID-19 succumbed to the viral disease in the last 24 hours. With this, the death toll has been pushed to 29,137, reported ARY News.The number of critical patients has also increased. It rose to 1,293 as compared to yesterday's 1,113. According to NCOC, a total of 51,063 samples were tested, out of which 5,196 turned out to be positive at the positivity rate of 10.17pc as compared to yesterday's 12.81 percent, reported ARY News.The positivity ratio in Islamabad was recorded at 22.2 percent. Besides, one person died of coronavirus in Rawalpindi district and 368 got infected, with the positivity rate calculated at 13.5pc.Notably, Pakistan is facing the fifth deadly wave of COVID and the country is breaking its previous records as the number increases each day.WHO has already warned that the nations should not treat the Omicron variant lightly and make sure that all the protocols are followed properly.

The Chinese capital reported 14 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday as it began a third round of mass testing of millions of people in the run-up to the Winter Olympics. The mass testing announcement, made late Tuesday by Beijing's Fengtai district on its social media account, prompted complaints from some residents who were asked to line up yet again outside as daytime temperatures hovered around freezing. Beijing has stepped up China's already strict pandemic response measures as it tries to quash any outbreaks ahead of the Olympics, which open in nine days. The city announced this week that anyone who buys fever, headache or two other types of medicine will be subject to a COVID-19 test within 72 hours. All 2 million residents in Fengtai district, where most of the cases in Beijing have been found, are being tested for the third time since last weekend. Testing was also being carried out for residential communities and neighbourhoods elsewhere in Beijing. About 90 people commented online on the mass testing announcement, mostly making complaints. Some said the frequent testing wastes resources, disrupts work and daily life, and burdens health care workers and community officials. China reported 24 new local cases in the latest 24-hour period, including the 14 in Beijing. That was up from five cases in Beijing and 18 nationwide the previous day.

Odisha's COVID-19 tally rose to 12,25,268 on Wednesday as 7,416 people tested positive for the infection, 1,525 or 25.9 per cent more than the previous day, a health bulletin said. Ten more patients succumbed to the infection, which is the highest daily toll in nearly five months. The state had reported 5,891 cases and seven fatalities on Tuesday. The daily test positivity rate rose to 11.37 per cent as 65,250 samples were examined in the last 24 hours, it said, adding that 867 children are among the new patients. Khurda district, under which Bhubaneswar falls, reported a quarter of the new cases at 1,959, followed by 778 in Sundargarh and 548 in Cuttack. The infections dropped by 36 per cent from 11,607 a week ago. The state's coronavirus death toll mounted to 8,542 with four deaths each in Khurda and Sundargarh, and one each in Kandhamal and Angul. Fifty-three patients have died due to comorbidities so far, it said. At least 10,244 more patients have recuperated from the disease, taking the total number of recoveries to 11,42,161. The number of active cases declined to 74,512, including 26,630 in Khurda. Sundargarh, Cuttack and Balasore are also in the red zone, where the number of present infections is over 2,500 each.

Two forms of immunity -- breakthrough infections following vaccination or natural infection followed by vaccination -- provide roughly equal levels of enhanced immune protection, finds a study. The study, published online in the journal Science Immunology, found that in both cases, the immune response measured in blood serum revealed antibodies that were equally more abundant and more potent -- at least 10 times more potent -- than immunity generated by vaccination alone. "It makes no difference whether you get infected and then vaccinated, or if you get vaccinated and then a breakthrough infection," said Fikadu Tafesse, Assistant Professor of molecular microbiology and immunology in the Oregon Health & Science University's School of Medicine. "In either case, you will get a really, really robust immune response -- amazingly high," Tafesse added. Although the study was done before the emergence of the highly transmissible omicron variant, researchers expect the hybrid immune responses would be similar. "The likelihood of getting breakthrough infections is high because there is so much virus around us right now," Tafesse said. "But we position ourselves better by getting vaccinated. And if the virus comes, we'll get a milder case and end up with this super immunity."

The Philippines Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the world's first generic version of Pfizer's anti-Coronavirus pill Paxlovid, just days after the original was granted Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA) by the US FDA.The Philippines FDA has approved the department of health's application for a compassionate special permit application for the first generic version of Paxlovid that has been launched by Beximco Pharmaceuticals, a leading generic drugmaker from Bangladesh.Philippines-based Pharmaceutical company Biocare Lifesciences Inc would be the distributor and importer of a generic drug, which would be sold under the brand name Bexovid in the Philippines.According to Pfizer, the risk of hospitalisation or death is reduced by 89% when Paxlovid is given within three days of the onset of symptoms and by 88% when given within five days of the onset of symptoms. The treatment, a combination of Nirmatrelvir and Ritonavir tablets, is given together twice a day for five days and is recommended for treatment of mild to moderate cases of Covid-19.Pfizer data also suggests the drug remains effective against the faster-spreading Omicron variant of the Coronavirus, which is driving the latest surge in Covid-19 cases globally.

India on Wednesday witnessed a marginal rise in Covid-19 cases with 2,85,914 Covid-19 infections reported in the past 24 hours, as per the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. In the same time span, 665 fatalities pushed the death toll in the country to 4,91,127. Meanwhile, the active caseload has jumped to 22,23,018 which constitute 5.55 per cent of the country's total positive cases. The recovery of 2,99,073 patients in the last 24 hours has increased the cumulative tally to 3,73,70,971. Consequently, the recovery rate stands at 93.23 per cent. Also in the same period, a total of 17,69,745 tests were conducted across the country. India has so far conducted over 72.05 crore cumulative tests. The weekly positivity rate has climbed to 17.33 per cent along with daily positivity rate which stands at 16.16 per cent. With the administration of over 59 lakhs vaccine doses in the last 24 hours, India's Covid inoculation coverage has reached 163.58 crore as of this morning. More than 13.60 crore balance and unutilised Covid vaccine doses are still available with the states and UTs, according to the ministry.

Malaysia reported 4,066 new Covid-19 infections in the last 24 hours, bringing the national total to 2,840,225, according to the health ministry. There are 442 new imported cases, with 3,624 being local transmissions, data released on the ministry's website showed. A further 16 deaths have been reported, bringing the death toll to 31,918, Xinhua news agency reported. The ministry reported 3,559 more recoveries, bringing the total number of cured and discharged to 2,762,608. There are 45,699 active cases, 131 are being held in intensive care units and 65 of those are in need of assisted breathing. The country administered a total of 213,226 doses of the Covid vaccine on Tuesday, and 79.8 per cent of the population have received at least one dose, while 78.7 per cent are fully vaccinated and 34 per cent have received boosters.

South Korea's daily number of new Covid-19 cases has hit a new record high due to the spread of the Omicron variant of the virus, the health authorities said Wednesday. According to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), the country reported 13,012 more Covid cases for the past 24 hours, raising the total number of infections to 762,983. The daily caseload was up from 8,571 in the previous day, topping 10,000 for the first time here since the country's first case was found in January 2020, Xinhua news agency reported. The recent resurgence was attributable to cluster infections in the Seoul metropolitan area amid the spread of the Omicron variant, which, the health authorities said has become a dominant strain here. Of the new cases, 3,110 were Seoul residents. The number of newly infected people living in Gyeonggi province and the western port city of Incheon was 4,184 and 860, respectively. The virus also raged in the non-metropolitan region. The number of new infections in the non-capital areas was 4,589, or 36.0 per cent of the total local transmissions. Among the newly reported Covid cases, 269 were imported from overseas, lifting the total number for this category to 24,234.

The COVID-19 tally of Andaman and Nicobar Islands rose to 9,522 on Wednesday as 70 people tested positive for the infection, 16 less than the previous day, a health bulletin said. One new patient has travel history, while 69 infections were detected during contact tracing, it said. The Union territory now has 574 active cases, while 8,819 people have recovered from the disease so far, including 94 in the last 24 hours, the bulletin said. The coronavirus death toll remained unchanged at 129 as no fresh fatality was recorded, it said. The administration has tested over 6.82 lakh samples for COVID-19 so far.

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Amid an ongoing resurgence across the world, the global coronavirus caseload has topped 357.9 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 5.61 million and vaccinations to over 9.85 billion, according to Johns Hopkins University. In its latest update on Wednesday morning, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload and the death toll stood at 357,963,895 and 5,614,043, respectively, while the total number of vaccine doses administered has increased to 9,850,294,423. The US continues to be the worst-hit country with the world's highest number of cases and deaths at 72,171,208 and 871,937, according to the CSSE. The second worst hit country in terms of cases is India (39,799,202 infections and 490,462 deaths), followed by Brazil (24,342,322 infections and 624,129 deaths). The other countries with over 5 million cases are France (17,420,531), the UK (16,158,212), Turkey (11,090,493), Russia (11,055,246), Italy (10,212,621), Spain (9,395,767), Germany (8,956,528), Argentina (8,041,520), Iran (6,267,559) and Colombia (5,780,910), the CSSE figures showed. The nations with a death toll of over 100,000 are Russia (320,844), Mexico (303,301), Peru (204,404), the UK (154,873), Indonesia (144,247), Italy (144,343), Colombia (132,737), Iran (132,274), France (130,483), Argentina (119,703), Germany (117,006), Ukraine (106,047) and Poland (104,097).

The Chinese mainland recorded 24 locally transmitted COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, local media reported citing the National Health Commission on Wednesday.Xinhua News Agency reported that out of the new local infections, 14 were reported in Beijing, four in Heilongjiang, two in Xinjiang, and one each in Hebei, Liaoning, Henan, and Guangdong, according to the commission.Tuesday also saw reports of 20 imported COVID-19 cases across the mainland, it added.

The COVID-19 booster drive in the US is losing steam, worrying health experts who have pleaded with Americans to get an extra shot to shore up their protection against the highly contagious Omicron variant. Just 40 per cent of fully-vaccinated Americans have received a booster dose, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And the average number of booster shots dispensed per day in the US has plummeted from a peak of one million (10 lakh) in early December to about 4.9 lakh as of last week. Also, a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that Americans are more likely to see the initial vaccinations -- rather than a booster -- as essential. "It is clear that the booster effort is falling short," said Jason Schwartz, a vaccine policy expert at Yale University. Overall, the US vaccination campaign has been sluggish. More than 13 months after it began, just 63 per cent of Americans, or 210 million (21 crore) people, are fully vaccinated with the initial rounds of shots. Mandates that could raise those numbers have been hobbled by legal challenges.

More than 10 million children in the US have tested positive for Covid-19 since the onset of the pandemic, according to the latest report of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Children's Hospital Association. A total of 10,603,034 child Covid-19 cases had been reported across the country as of January 20, and children represented 18.4 per cent of all confirmed cases, according to the report published late Monday. Covid-19 cases among children have spiked dramatically across the US during the Omicron variant surge, Xinhua news agency reported. Over 1.1 million child Covid-19 cases were reported in the past week, nearly five times the rate of the peak of last winter's surge, according to the AAP. This number was a 17 per cent increase over the 981,000 added cases reported the week before and a doubling of case counts from the two weeks prior, according to the AAP. Over 2 million child Covid-19 cases have been added in the past two weeks. This marks the 24th week in a row child Covid-19 cases in the US are above 100,000. Since the first week of September, there have been over 5.6 million additional child cases, according to the AAP.

Karnataka reported 41,400 new COVID-19 cases during the last 24 hours, said the state Health Department on Tuesday. The positivity rate for the day stands at 26.70 per cent. A total of 1,55,504 samples were tested during the last 24 hours, said a bulletin from the health department. With this, the total count of COVID-19 cases in the state has gone up to 36,05,508.

The IMF on Tuesday cut India's economic growth forecast by 0.5 percentage points to 9 per cent for the current fiscal year, with its Chief Economist Gita Gopinath saying that the slight downgrade is mainly due to the impact of the spread of the Omicron variant. "If you look at the 2021-22 fiscal year, we have a slight downgrade of -0.5 percentage points and for the next fiscal year 2022-23 we have a slight upgrade of 0.5 percentage points. So, growth for the previous fiscal year is now nine per cent and for this year now is at nine per cent. We moved it up slightly," Gopinath told reporters during a news conference here. In its latest update of World Economic Outlook on Tuesday, the International Monetary Fund has cut India's economic growth forecast to 9 per cent for the current fiscal year ending March 31, joining a host of agencies which have downgraded their projections on concerns over the impact of the spread of Omicron on business activity and mobility. The Washington-based international financial institution, which had in October last year projected a 9.5 per cent GDP growth for India, put the forecast for the next fiscal FY23 (April 2022 to March 2023) at 7.1 per cent. The Indian economy had contracted by 7.3 per cent in the 2020-21 fiscal year.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has projected the global economy to grow by 4.4 per cent in 2022, down by 0.5 percentage points from October's forecast, according to a newly released update to its World Economic Outlook report. Growth will slow as economies grapple with supply disruptions, higher inflation, record debt and persistent uncertainty, First Deputy Managing Director Gita Gopinath on Tuesday told a virtual press briefing. "The rapid spread of the Omicron variant has led to renewed mobility restrictions in many countries and increased labor shortages," said Gopinath, who was previously the IMF's Chief Economist. She added that while Omicron will weigh on activity in the first quarter of 2022, this effect will fade starting in the second quarter, Xinhua news agency reported. "Supply disruptions still weigh on activity and are contributing to higher inflation," adding to pressures from strong demand and elevated food and energy prices, she said.

France's daily number of Covid-19 cases hit a new record after 501,635 cases were recorded in the past 24 hours, according to data from the country's Public Health Agency. The number of Covid-19 patients in intensive care had fallen by 35 on Monday to 3,741 on Tuesday, but a further 364 deaths had been registered, showed the data on Tuesday. To date, the country has recorded a total of 102,086 deaths related to Covid-19 in hospitals. The vaccine pass came into effect in France on Monday, and is now mandatory for people over the age of 16 years to enter public venues, Xinhua news agency reported. Children between the age of 12 and 15 years are not obliged to have the vaccine pass, but must present a health pass, and from Monday can receive the booster vaccine. Minister of Health, Olivier Veran told French news channel LCI on Tuesday that 9 million French citizens could lose the pass if they do not have the booster dose by February 15. As of this date, vaccination is considered complete if the booster dose has been received within 4 months of the second injection.

Pfizer is enrolling healthy adults to test a reformulated COVID-19 vaccine that matches the hugely contagious omicron variant, to see how it compares with the original shots. Pfizer and its partner BioNTech announced the study on Tuesday. COVID-19 vaccine-makers have been updating their shots to better match omicron in case global health authorities decide the change is needed. Omicron is more likely than previous variants to cause infection even in people who’ve been vaccinated, but it’s not yet clear that a change to the vaccine recipe will be ordered.