Omicron variant Updates: Jharkhand reports its first 14 cases of new variant

More than 60 per cent of the people infected with the Omicron variant of the coronavirus in the national capital did not have any travel history or contact with international travellers, suggesting that its community transmission had happened quite fast, according to a study by the Delhi government-run Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences. The study, possibly the first in India to provide evidence of community transmission of Omicron, looked into genome sequencing data of positive cases collected from five districts of Delhi -- South, Southeast, Southwest, West and East -- between November 25 and December 23 last year. A total of 332 samples were sent to ILBS from different testing laboratories across the five districts and out of these, 264 samples that passed "quality check" were analysed. Out of the 264 samples sequenced, 68.9 per cent were found infected with Delta and its sub-lineages while the remaining 82 samples (31.06 per cent) were Omicron.

Fresh coronavirus cases in Tamil Nadu reached the grim milestone of 24,000 infections in a single day and the new cases in Chennai neared the 9,000-mark. The State on Saturday recorded 23,989 new cases and 11 fatalities. This took the total number of cases reported so far to 29,15,948 and the death toll to 36,967.
 

Haryana on Saturday reported another surge of COVID-19 cases with 9,050 fresh infections and seven fatalities, taking the active cases in the state to 46,720.   Of the seven deaths, two were reported in Sonipat district and one each in Gurugram, Ambala, Yamunanagar, Bhiwani and Kaithal. With these, the total number of deaths in the state rose to 10,098, according to the health department's daily bulletin. With these fresh cases, the total tally of COVID-19 cases in the state rose to 8,37,998.
 

Bihar's COVID-19 tally rose to 7,81,716 on Saturday as 6,325 people tested positive for the infection, 216 less than the previous day, while four fresh fatalities pushed the state's toll to 12,127, a health bulletin said. Patna registered 2,305 fresh infections, 189 more than the previous day. The capital city also accounted for 14,131 of the 35,916 active cases in the state. Three fresh fatalities were registered in Patna and one in Motihari in East Champaran district, it said. A total of 7,33,673 people have recovered from the disease so far, including 4,489 in the last 24 hours. The state's positivity rate increased to 3.67 per cent from 3.58 per cent on Friday. A total of 6.34 crore samples have been tested for COVID-19 to date, including 1.72 lakh in the last 24 hours.

Fresh COVID-19 cases in Assam register 44 pc jump in a single day to 3,390, positivity increases to nearly 10 percent, Health ministry says. 

Karnataka Congress MLA Priyank Kharge who had participated in the party's padayatra demanding implementation of Mekedatu project, on Saturday said, he tested positive for COVID-19. "Missed Covid in the 1st wave, ducked it in the 2nd wave, even had a false positive once. After several negative tests, I have now tested positive for Covid. Thankfully all my staff members have tested -ve. Request anyone who was in touch with me to get tested as per norms," Kharge tweeted. Earlier several other Congress leaders including Priyank's father and Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, and former Union minister Veerappa Moily who had participated in the inaugural of the padayatra on January 9 had tested COVID-19 positive.

Former Puducherry chief minister and senior Congress leader V Narayanasamy tested positive for COVID-19 on Saturday.

Narayanasamy has taken two doses of COVID-19 vaccination and also got his booster dose a few days ago. In a Facebook post, the former chief minister said he had tested COVID-19 positive with mild symptoms. The former chief minister also said he had isolated himself at home and asked all those who had been in contact with him to get themselves tested and isolate themselves at home as well.
 

The Arignar Anna Zoological Park here, popularly known as the 'Vandalur zoo', would be closed to the public till January 31, a senior official said here on Saturday. To avoid rapid spread of Covid, the zoological park would be closed to public from January 17 to 31, an official release said. The AAZP is located in the southern suburb of Vandalur and it is among the key attractions of the metropolis. A press release from the office of the Director of the AAZP said that the situation would be reviewed on January 31 and an appropriate decision shall be taken. Like last Sunday, a shutdown would be enforced on January 16 too in Tamil Nadu and restrictions like night curew are already in place to help prevent the spread of coronavirus. 

Uttar Pradesh on Saturday reported 15,795 fresh coronavirus infections that pushed its active caseload to 95,148, while four more fatalities pushed the death toll to 22,953, an official statement issued here said. Lucknow reported the highest number of fresh cases at 2,769, followed by 1,873 from Gautam Budh Nagar, 1,371 from Ghaziabad and 1,135 from Meerut, among other districts, it said. With the new infections, Uttar Pradesh's coronavirus tally stands at 18,16,974. The latest deaths were reported from Lucknow, Meerut, Muzaffarnagar and Mainpuri, the statement said. As many as 5,031 more coronavirus patients have recuperated from the viral infection, taking the total number of recoveries to 16,98,873, it said. So far, over 9.60 crore tests, including 2.58 lakh done the previous day, have been conducted for the detection of COVID-19 in the state, it said.

At least 250 doctors and paramedics of various hospitals across Kashmir have tested positive for COVID-19 in the last fortnight, an official said on Saturday. He said with such a large number of members from the medical fraternity getting infected with the virus, the valley was finding the situation challenging.

“Over 250 doctors and paramedics of Government Medical College Srinagar and its associated hospitals tested positive for COVID-19 in last 15 days,” professor and head of department, community medicine, GMC Srinagar, Dr Salim Khan said.

Karnataka has effectively leveraged technology in COVID battle and so far about 2.5 lakh healthcare and frontline staff have been trained through online platforms, Health and Medical Education Minister K Sudhakar said on Saturday. He said, this is a model for the entire country.

The Minister today inaugurated the virtual training programme being conducted in association with StepOne for about 10,000 medical, dental and Ayush students to train them in home isolation care and addressed the students.

Twenty more people, including eight students, residing on the IIT Kharagpur campus have tested positive for COVID-19, an official said on Saturday.
Twelve faculty members and non-teaching staff of the premier institute are among the new patients, he said. "The fresh infections were reported in the last two-three days as authorities have adopted a strategy of testing and tracing to contain the spread of the disease," Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur Registrar Tamal Nath told PTI. Sixty people of the institute, including students and researchers, were found infected with COVID-19 between January 1 and 4. All of them have recovered from the disease and they are now either in isolation or returned to their normal activities, the official said.
Most of the newly infected patients have mild symptoms of COVID-19 and the on-campus medical care team is monitoring their condition regularly, he said.

Odisha’s COVID-19 caseload mounted to 11,22,735 on Saturday with 10,856 fresh infections, while two more fatalities pushed the death toll to 8,478, the Health Department said in a bulletin.

The state also reported 32 new Omicron cases taking the tally of the new strain of coronavirus in Odisha to 202, a health department official said.
The daily test positivity rate jumped to 14.49 per cent from 13.57 per cent the previous day, when 10,273 coronavirus cases were reported, the bulletin said.

The national capital recorded 20,718 fresh cases of the Covid 19 in the last 24 hours, Apart from this, city recorded 30 deaths, while the test positivity rate (TPR) stood at 30.64%.

Maximum 200 people will be allowed in a marriage related ceremony at a time or 50% seating capacity of the venue. Mela/ Fair allowed in open air area in very restricted manner, said the West Bengal government in its fresh guidelines for Covid 19.

Children in the age group of 15-18 years who are not vaccinated against Covid will not be allowed to enter schools, when they reopen, Haryana Health Minister Anil Vij said on Friday. Schools in the state are currently shut in view of big surge in coronavirus cases in the past fortnight. The minister issued the instruction during a meeting with officials to review the current Covid situation in the state.

Also Read: All schools, colleges in Haryana to remain closed till January 12 amid rising Covid cases

Engineering Export Promotion Council of India has expressed concern that the spread of Omicron, the new variant of coronavirus, may once again disrupt the global supply chain, which could lead to a slowdown in trading activities. Exports of engineering goods registered a 38 per cent year-on-year growth in December, 2021 to USD 38.4 billion.

Kerala Education Minister V Sivankutty on Saturday said there was no considerable spread of COVID-19 among students in the state and the government's decision to put on hold the offline classes for students of grade 1 to 9 for two weeks was a precautionary step as the viral infection saw a surge in recent days. The classes would be suspended for two weeks as a precaution and it was applicable to all educational institutions in the southern state, he told a press conference. Noting that the safety of children was of paramount importance to the government, he said the timetable of the online classes would be restructured as per the new decision. However, there would be no change in the offline classes of 10th, 11th and 12th standards and special arrangements would be made for those children coming to schools, he said.

Odisha's COVID-19 caseload mounted to 11,22,735 on Saturday with 10,856 fresh infections, while two more fatalities pushed the death toll to 8,478, the Health Department said in a bulletin. The daily test positivity rate jumped to 14.49 per cent from 13.57 per cent the previous day, when 10,273 cases were reported, it said. Khurda district, where state capital Bhubaneswar is located, reported over a quarter of the new cases at 3,087, followed by 1,943 in Sundargarh, 909 in Cuttack and 500 in Sambalpur.

A total of 6,041 Omicron cases have been detected so far, an increase of 5.01 per cent since Friday

India logged 2,68,833 lakh new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hrs. 

 China on Friday reported 104 new locally transmitted COVID-19 cases, local media reported on Saturday. Of the new local cases, 52 were reported in Henan, 39 in Tianjin, eight in Guangdong, four in Shaanxi, and one in Zhejiang, Xinhua reported citing the National Health Commission report. Also reported were 61 new imported cases in eight provincial-level regions, according to the commission.

Children in the age group of 15-18 years who are not vaccinated against COVID-19 will not be allowed to enter schools, when they reopen, Haryana Health Minister Anil Vij said on Friday. Schools in the State are currently shut in view of big surge in coronavirus cases in the past fortnight. The Minister issued the instruction during a meeting with officials to review the current COVID-19 situation in the state.

Maharashtra on Friday reported 238 new cases of the Omicron variant of coronavirus, raising their overall count to 1,605, a health department official said. Of the 238 new cases of the highly contagious variant Omicron, 197 were reported from Pune city, 32 from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial township, three each from Navi Mumbai and Pune rural, two from Mumbai and one from Akola, the official said.

Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope on Friday said there are no clear guidelines from the Centre on the treatment of patients detected with the Omicron and Delta variants, especially on the usage of Molnupiravir, an oral, direct-acting antiviral. He said the lack of guidelines from the Union government on clinical management protocol for treatment and testing of Omicron and Delta variants was causing confusion. 

"There is confusion regarding the treatment and testing of Omicron and Delta variants. When anti-drug and Molnupiravir are used there are no clear guidelines from the Union Health Ministry,” he said.

Tope also said home testing kits to detect the infection were creating problems as data in a lot of cases was not being uploaded on the requisite sites.

"In Mumbai itself, around 5 lakh such self test kits were sold but a lot of cases detected through them have gone unreported. Such cases should be monitored by the health department but this did not happen," he said.

 Six new Omicron cases were detected in Manipur on Friday, said a release issued by K Rajo Singh, the director of health services. With that, the number of people in the state infected with the new variant of coronavirus rose to seven, the release said. Containment measures have been taken and contracts of the patients traced, it stated. All patients are being made to undergo isolation. They aget discharged after their RT-PCR test gives negative results, the release added.