Omicron Variant LIVE Updates: Kerala schools closed for up to class 9 amid rising Covid cases

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.

Punjab's coronavirus tally surged to 6,49,736 on Friday with 7,642 fresh cases, while the death toll climbed to 16,731 as 21 more people succumbed to the viral infection, according to a medical bulletin. Of the fresh cases, Ludhiana reported 1,808, Mohali 1,215, Jalandhar 695, Patiala 634 and Bathinda 469, the bulletin stated. Seven deaths were reported from Ludhiana, four from Jalandhar, two each from Hoshiarpur and Patiala and one each from Amritsar, Barnala, Gurdaspur, Moga, Sangrur and Tarn Taran, it said.

The People's Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) has postponed its January 15 meeting here in view of a surge in Covid cases, its spokesman said on Friday. The meeting of the alliance of Jammu and Kashmir-based mainstream political parties, including the National Conference (NC) and the PDP, was to be held to discuss its "future plans", CPI(M) leader Mohammad Yusuf Tarigami said.

The COVID-19 tally in Madhya Pradesh reached 8,19,228 on Friday with the detection of 4,755 new cases, while the death toll remained unchanged at 10,543, an official said. He said the positivity rate in the state was 5.9 per cent, up from 5.1 per cent on Thursday, when the addition to the infection tally was 4,031.

Uttar Pradesh reported 16,016 fresh COVID-19 cases, taking the tally of active cases in the state to 84,440, while three more fatalities pushed the death toll to 22,949, according to an official statement released on Friday evening. Of the three deaths, two were reported from Meerut and one from Gautam Buddh Nagar, it said.

The risk of recession is looming for Germany after Europe's biggest economy shrank at the end of 2021 and as it faces a bumpy start to this year, with the rapid spread of COVID-19's omicron variant deterring people from shopping and travel and supply bottlenecks holding back manufacturers. Output in Germany fell by between 0.5% and 1% in the fourth quarter, the state statistics agency Destatis said Friday. Forecasts are also shaky for the first three months of 2022, and two straight quarters of falling output would leave Germany in recession, according to one commonly used definition.

Kerala on Friday registered 16,338 fresh COVID-19 cases, raising the state's caseload to 53,33,828, a government bulletin said. The southern state had reported 13,468 cases on Thursday. Kerala on Friday also reported 199 deaths that raised the total fatalities in the state to 50,568, according to the government release. Of the latest deaths, 20 were recorded over the last few days and 179 designated as COVID-19 deaths after receiving appeals based on the new guidelines of the Centre and the directions of the Supreme Court. With 3,848 more people recovering from the virus since Thursday, the total recoveries reached 52,14,862.

As India reported more than 2.64 lakh COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, a health expert said most of the patients are recovering with symptomatic treatment and do not require any fancy drugs. "My request to those patients who are healthy and more immunocompetent young adults having hardly any symptoms is that they should not go for these fancy drugs," said Dr Sandeep Nayar, Senior Director and HOD Chest and Respiratory Diseases, BLK Max Super Speciality Hospital, Delhi.

"We don't know all these required any emergency treatment. It might cause problems in the later stage," Dr Nayar said.

Andhra Pradesh reported 4,528 fresh cases of Covid-19, 418 recoveries and one death in 24 hours ending 9 AM on Friday. The latest bulletin said the number of active cases went up to 18,313. There were a total of 20,96,755 positive cases, 20,63,934 recoveries and 14,508 deaths so far.

For the first time in about four months, a district registered more than 1,000 fresh cases in a day. Chittoor added 1,027 to the tally. Visakhapatnam logged 992. Ten districts reported less than 400 new cases each while West Godavari saw the lowest at 62.

COVID-19 cases are rising fast in the national capital but there is no reason to worry, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Friday emphasising that hospitalisation and death rates are quite low. He asked people to be responsible and assured them that the government has made all preparations and there are enough hospital beds.
 
"There is no need to panic. Cases are rising fast and there is no two ways about it. The Omicron variant is quite transmissible and infectious," Kejriwal told reporters on the sidelines of an event.

With the third wave of COVID-19 taking a foothold in Nepal, a large number of health workers and other officials have been infected with the coronavirus in Himalayan nation, local media reported on Friday. As many as 143 health workers have tested positive for COVID-19 in six government hospitals in the Kathmandu Valley. Citing hospital sources, Khabarhub reported that 65 health workers have been infected with the COVID-19 at TU Teaching Hospital, 35 at Bir Hospital, 25 at Patan Hospital, four at Teku, 10 at Nepal Police Hospital, and four have been infected with the virus at Armed Police Force

After a high-level meeting conducted today, the Kerala government today suspended offline classes up to standard 9. The decision comes amid rising Covid cases in the state.

The Union Health Ministry on Friday issued a clarification that there is no COVID-19 vaccine shortage in Maharashtra as it has over 24 lakh unutilized doses of Covaxin available with it and an additional 6.35 lakh doses have been received today. According to the press release issued by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MHFW), there have been some media reports alleging vaccine shortage in Maharashtra stating that due to lack of vaccines the state government is unable to increase the pace of vaccination in the state. Such reports are ill-informed and incorrect.

Ladakh reported 124 fresh cases of COVID-19, taking the active number of cases to 598, while the total tally in the union territory has gone up to 22,773, officials said on Friday. Twenty eight patients were discharged from hospitals in Ladakh, taking the total number of recoveries to 22,153. Of the 124 fresh cases, 104 were reported from Leh district and 20 from Kargil.

Taking a serious view of the massive spike in Covid-19 cases in the past fortnight, the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has cracked the whip on "unreported" home tests that prevent tracking of infected persons or their contacts, officials said here on Friday. The civic authorities said that all Covid-19 positive tests either through Rapid Antigen Test Kits or Home Test Kits, were expected to be reported to the ICMR by the concerned laboratory or the individuals who are found infected.

China further tightened its anti-pandemic measures in Beijing and across the country on Friday as scattered outbreaks continued ahead of the opening of the Winter Olympics in a little over two weeks. The actions appear to reflect nervousness about a possible surge in cases ahead of the Beijing Games. Beijing has ordered children at international schools to be tested starting next week and is barring air passengers who transited via a third point. Citizens are being told only to travel if absolutely necessary, with no guarantee they will be permitted to return if found to have visited a city or region where an outbreak occurred.

The National Green Tribunal has said that the Uttar Pradesh health department and the state pollution control board (SPCB)are not properly geared up for the management of biomedical waste of COVID-19 patients. A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel noted that there is only one vehicle for COVID-19 waste collection from 876 Health Care Facilities in five districts of the state -- Bareilly, Shahjahanpur, Badaun, Pilibhit and Rampur.

“Their monitoring mechanism is inadequate. The maintenance of the record is not as per norms. The collection and treatment of Bio-medical waste is deficient. “There are no adequate safeguards for the workers involved in the collection and treatment of the waste,” the bench said.

More than 75 per cent of those who succumbed to the novel coronavirus infection in the current wave in Delhi were unvaccinated, Health Minister Satyendra Jain said on Friday. He also said that the city is expected to record less than 25,000 coronavirus cases on Friday. Delhi had on Thursday reported 28,867 COVID-19 cases, the sharpest single-day spike since the pandemic began, and 31 deaths, while the positivity rate surged to 29.21 per cent, according to the health department data. Delhi's previous biggest daily jump of 28,395 cases was recorded on April 20 last year.

Delhi may witness below 25,000 cases on Friday, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain said. "On Thursday, the national capital had recorded 28,867 new Covid cases, the highest ever single-day rise since the beginning of the pandemic," he said. Talking to reporters on the recent Covid deaths in Delhi, he said that around 75 per cent of the Covid patients who died were unvaccinated. "Nearly 75 per cent of the people who died due to Covid infection had not even taken a single dose of the vaccine. It is important to get vaccinated. There have also been instances where people had severe illnesses before they contracted Covid-19," Jain noted.

The peak of the third Covid-19 wave in Indonesia triggered by the Omicron variant is expected to occur in mid-February, the Health Ministry said. The peak will probably happen in the second or third week of February, with daily cases up to 40,000 to 55,000, spokesperson for the Health Ministry's Covid-19 vaccination program Siti Nadia Tarmizi said. Till date, the country has recorded 506 Omicron cases, including 84 local transmissions, as well as 1,384 probable cases of the variant based on the S-gene target failure (SGTF) swab test method. Thousands of probable Omicron cases are currently in the process of whole genome sequencing, Tarmizi said, adding that the daily number of Covis-19 cases in the country continues to rise with the total tally at 4,268,890.

People who have recovered from coronavirus infection will have to wait for up to three months before they can take a new life insurance policy, with insurers making the waiting period requirement applicable for coronavirus cases like other ailments. As a standard practice, all life and health insurance companies require people to wait for a specific period with respect to certain ailments and diseases to gauge the risk before selling a policy. This condition of waiting period for people who have recovered from coronavirus infection will be applicable only for life insurance policies. Industry experts said the waiting period for individuals, who have recovered from coronavirus infection, in order to take a new insurance policy has been implemented against the backdrop of high mortality rate related to coronavirus infection.

Covid cases are rising fast but there no reason to worry, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Friday while emphasising that hospitalisation and death rates are low. He asked people to be responsible and assured them that the government has made all preparations and there are enough hospital beds. "There is no need to panic. Cases have risen but hospitalisation and deaths are low. We have made all the preparations and there is no shortage of beds," Kejriwal told reporters. Delhi on Thursday reported 28,867 COVID-19 cases, the sharpest single-day spike since the beginning of the pandemic, and 31 deaths while the positivity rate went up to 29.21 per cent.

The World Health Organization (WHO) Guideline Development Group recommended the use of two arthritis drugs called baricitinib and interleukin-6 (IL-6) in combination with corticosteroids to treat patients with severe or critical COVID-19, on Friday."Today's recommendations are based on new evidence from seven trials involving over 4,000 patients with non-severe, severe, and critical covid-19 infection," the group said in the British Medical Journal, reported Sputnik.Trials showed that a combination of corticosteroids with baricitinib and IL-6 - drugs of the Janus kinase inhibitor (JAK) group used to treat rheumatoid arthritis - improves the survival rate and reduces the need for pulmonary ventilation, with no increased adverse effects.

To keep the fifth Covid-19 wave under control, the Hungarian government announced that it would offer a fourth vaccine against the virus to the country's citizens on a voluntary basis. "Those who want to will be able to receive the fourth jab after consulting with a doctor," Gergely Gulyas, Prime Minister Viktor Orban's chief of staff, told journalists, adding that the government will soon publish the relevant decree. The move was made necessary by the fast-spreading Omicron coronavirus variant, reports Xinhua news agency. "Most infections are now caused by the Omicron variant, but the government expects the number of people needing hospital care not to rise as fast as the number of infected," Gulyas said. The government also decided to modify its official pass, called "protection certificate" in Hungarian, which will from February 15 be called "vaccination certificate". The card will only be issued to those who have received three vaccine doses or at least a second jab in the past six months. "The government is confident that this step will convince many unvaccinated people to get inoculated, but no new measures are planned to make vaccination mandatory," Gulyas said.

Calcutta High Court directs West Bengal Election Commission to consider postponing civil body polls for 4-6 weeks due to rising COVID cases; EC to clear its stand within 48 hours.

Stating that over 85 per cent of beds are vacant in the city, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain on Friday said that around 25,000 new COVID-19 cases are expected today. Speaking to media in the national capital, Jain said, "Last night, Delhi reported 28,867 new COVID-19 cases, 31 fatalities, and 2424 hospitals were occupied. Over 13,000 beds were vacant. Just over 15 per cent of beds in the hospitals were occupied. We are expecting that the city would report around 25,000 new COVID-19 cases today." On whether Delhi started witnessing flattening of cases, Jain said, "The hospital admissions in the city have become stagnant, which is a good sign. The positivity rate keeps on changing, but the main factor is hospital admissions."

Police searched the homes of more than 100 people in Bavaria and other states in southern Germany who allegedly obtained false Covid-19 vaccination certificates, local authorities said. The public prosecutor's office in Augsburg issued orders to the district court to search the homes and take blood samples from a total of around 100 people, Xinhua news agency quoted a police statement as saying. The background to the searches were investigations against a physician who was involved in "irregularities with Covid-19 vaccinations", the police noted. Some patients who visited the physician with the intention of receiving Covid-19 vaccination were allegedly given a fake jab without their knowledge, the police said. Other individuals who visited the physician to "obtain a vaccination certificate without a Covid-19 vaccination" got it under mutual consent, the authorities noted. Individuals who knowingly received a fake certificate were under investigation for aiding or abetting the issuance of inaccurate health certificates as well as for violating the country's infection control act.

Keeping in view the risk to non-COVID patients in accessing medical facilities in hospitals amid a surge in coronavirus cases, the Odisha government has allowed the activation of telemedicine service for them. The state government on Thursday issued an order asking telemedicine platforms to provide distance medical assistance to the needy. "The present COVID-19 situation has raised a big challenge to the accessibility of patients to hospitals for general healthcare. Taking the situation into account, it has been decided to use telemedicine centres effectively and proactively established in medical colleges and other hospitals," the notification said. The telemedicine service will be available in SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack, MKCG Medical College and Hospital in Berhampur, VIMSAR, Burla, Acharya Harihar Post Graduate Institute of Cancer and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Post Graduate Institute of Paediatrics in Cuttack round the clock and staff arrangement be made accordingly, it said.

After a six-week surge, Africa's fourth wave of the Covid-19 pandemic driven primarily by the Omicron variant, is flattening, marking the shortest-lived surge to date in the continent where cumulative cases have now exceeded 10 million, the World Health Organization (WHO) said. Weekly cases having plateaued in the week ending on January 9, Xinhua news agency quoted a statement issued by the WHO's regional office for Africa as saying on Thursday. It said that Southern Africa, which saw a huge increase in infections during the pandemic wave, recorded a 14 per cent decline in infections over the past week, with South Africa, where Omicron was first reported, recording a 9 per cent fall in weekly infections. North and West Africa, however, are witnessing a rise in cases, with North Africa reporting a 121 per cent increase this past week compared with the previous one, warned the WHO.

India saw a single day jump of 2,64,202 new coronavirus infections, the highest in 239 days, taking the total tally of COVID-19 cases to 3,65,82,129 which includes  5,753 cases of the Omicron variant, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Friday. There has been a 4.83 per cent increase in Omicron cases since Thursday. The  active cases have increased to 12,72,073, the highest in 220 days, while the death toll has climbed to 4,85,350 with 315 fresh fatalities, the data updated at 8 am stated. The  active cases comprises 3.48 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has decreased to 95.20 per cent, the ministry said. A total 2,76,110 coronavirus infections were reported in a single day on May 19. An increase of 1,54,542 cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 caseload in a span of  24 hours. The daily positivity rate was recorded at 14.78 per cent while the weekly positivity rate was recorded at 11.83 per cent, according to the ministry. The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to3,48,24,706, while the case fatality rate  was recorded at 1.33 per cent. The cumulative doses administered in the country so far under the nationwide COVID-19 vaccination drive has exceeded 155.39 crore. India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 2020, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16. It went past 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19. India crossed the grim milestone of two crore on May 4 and three crore on June 23.

Africa’s fourth pandemic wave, driven primarily by the Omicron variant, is flattening after a six-week surge, the WHO has said even as it stressed that the shortest-lived surge to date in the continent was "steep and brief but no less destabilising." The new Omicron variant was first reported to the WHO from South Africa on November 24. The World Health Organisation (WHO) on November 26 declared it as a variant of concern. “Early indications suggest that Africa’s fourth wave has been steep and brief but no less destabilising. The crucial pandemic countermeasure badly needed in Africa still stands, and that is rapidly and significantly increasing COVID-19 vaccinations. The next wave might not be so forgiving,” WHO Regional Director for Africa Dr. Matshidiso Moeti said.

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Amid an ongoing resurgence across the world, the global coronavirus caseload has topped 319.8 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 5.52 million and vaccinations to over 9.55 billion, according to Johns Hopkins University. In its latest update on Friday morning, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload and the death toll stood at 319,871,018 and 5,520,191, respectively, while the total number of vaccine doses administered has increased to 9,552,790,916. The US continues to be the worst-hit country with the world's highest number of cases and deaths at 64,044,568 and 846,371, according to the CSSE.

Amid the surge in COVID-19 cases in Telangana, several doctors and health workers have also been infected with the coronavirus. Speaking to news agency ANI, Dr Sambit, HOD of Critical Care at Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS) said, "We are getting 50 cases every day, out of which 25-40 are in-patients. A few doctors have also been afflicted, but most are either asymptomatic or mildly afflicted."He said as a precaution, doctors with infections have been advised to be in isolation and not report to duty until they are well.

Uttar Pradesh reported 14,765 fresh COVID-19 cases on Thursday, raising the tally of active cases in the state to 71,022 while six more fatalities pushed the death toll to 22,946, an official statement said. While two deaths were reported from Hardoi, one death each was reported from Jaunpur, Kanpur, Lakhimpur Kheri and Pilibhit, it said. In the past 24 hours, a maximum of 2,213 cases were reported from Lucknow, 1,678 from Ghaziabad, 1,626 cases from Gautam Buddh Nagar and 390 from Mathura, it added. In the past 24 hours, 1,062 COVID-19 patients recovered from the infection, taking the number of recoveries to 16,91,288, the statement said.

Chile's Health Ministry has said it registered more than 7,000 Covid-19 cases in 24 hours, after detecting 7,291 infections in one day, the highest figure in seven months. The new cases pushed the country's total caseload to 1,849,465, the Ministry added on Thursday. On Thursday, 41 more patients died of causes related to the disease, bringing the pandemic death toll to 39,331, Xinhua news agency reported. The Covid-19 positivity rate for Wednesday was 6.9 per cent nationwide and 7.39 per cent in the Santiago Metropolitan Region, the Ministry said, adding none of Chile's 16 regions had a positivity rate below 2 per cent. Chile averaged 2,500 daily Covid-19 infections in December 2021, but the spread of the Omicron variant of coronavirus in January has pushed the average to 5,000 cases per day. Meanwhile, Chile began applying a second booster dose of the vaccine against Covid-19 in January, aiming to increase the population's protection against Omicron amid the tourism summer season in the southern Hemisphere.

President Joe Biden announced on Thursday that the government will double to 1 billion the rapid, at-home COVID-19 tests to be distributed free to Americans, along with the most protective N95 masks, as he highlighted his efforts to “surge” resources to help the country weather the spike in coronavirus cases. Biden also announced that starting next week 1,000 military medical personnel will begin deploying across the country to help overwhelmed medical facilities ease staff shortages due to the highly transmissible omicron variant. Many facilities are struggling because their workers are in at-home quarantines due to the virus at the same time as a nationwide spike in COVID-19 cases. The new deployments will be on top of other federal medical personnel who have already been sent to states to help with acute shortages. Speaking at the White House Thursday, Biden acknowledged that, “I know we're all frustrated as we enter this new year" as virus cases reach new heights.But he insisted that it remains “a pandemic of the unvaccinated.”

Over 5 lakh people watched as ISKCON Bangalore celebrated Sri Vaikuntha Ekadashi on Thursday. Due to a surge in COVID-19 cases, the temple was closed to the public. The festivities were streamed live on its official website and social media platforms: ISKCON Bangalore.

In the previous seven days, Croatia has recorded over 48,600 new Covid-19 cases, the highest weekly caseload since the outbreak of the pandemic in early 2020, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said at a government session. This is double the number two weeks ago, Plenkovic added on Thursday. The country has also reported more than 13,000 Covid-19-related deaths since the pandemic began, Xinhua news agency reported. The Prime Minister urged his compatriots to get vaccinated, emphasising that the authorities have enough vaccine doses for everyone. On Thursday, Croatia reported 9,157 new Covid-19 infections, the second highest caseload since February 25, 2020, when the first Covid-19 case was identified in the country, and 23 coronavirus-related deaths. On Thursday, the cumulative number of confirmed infections stood at 794,190 and the death toll at 13,006 across the country. The low vaccination rate- 56 per cent- has widely been blamed for the high infection rate in the country.

AIIMS, New Delhi, Director Dr Randeep Guleria said, "It is important for us to understand that children are not like adults and we cannot translate what we are doing in adults to children. They need to be treated separately and that is why this webinar that we are having today is very, very important." "There is also been a lot of concern about the severity of illness in children in this current wave with some reports from hospitals in the US claiming that they are seeing an increased number of children being admitted. So I think it is important to clarify, how is the current Omicron behaving as far as children are concerned? The concern has always been there as the younger children are not vaccinated and they are really getting more severe diseases. What is the management for children who are having COVID 19, what can we give, what should we not give and how should we treat these children depending on their age group and their presentation?" The purpose of the webinar was to re-emphasise all the important information and management of paediatric COVID. "Omicron does affect the children but it is a mild disease. So we also need to keep in mind that the fear and the panic which is getting created among the families, we must be able to curtail it," said Dr Prof Ashok Deorari, AIIMS, Delhi.  Dr Rakesh Lodha, Head, Professor, Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, AIIMS, Delhi, who was the speaker during the webinar, further explained by showing the data about the infection rate in children but more data is still required. "Now what we see is that our children are more frequently affected. I think we need some data and I think that data is likely to be available soon. But apparently, there doesn't seem to be a dramatic increase in the proportion the absolute numbers are likely to go up as the cumulative or the total number of cases increase in the country."

The US has taken more actions to contain the new Covid-19 surge, including offering more free test kits and "high quality masks" to Americans. President Joe Biden announced on Thursday his administration would make "high-quality masks" available to Americans for free. He also announced his administration would purchase an additional 500 million Covid-19 tests on top of the 500 million tests he previously announced, Xinhua news agency reported. The new announcements came as the US struggles to address record high daily cases, hospitalisations, testing challenges and messaging frustration. A total of 1,481,375 new cases and 1,904 new deaths were reported on Monday, according to data of Johns Hopkins University. The single-day increase of cases has set a new record around the globe since the onset of the pandemic. The country is now averaging over 760,000 new Covid-19 cases and over 1,600 new deaths each day, up significantly week by week, according to latest CDC data.