961 Omicron Cases in India, Over 300 Have Recovered; Health Ministry Calls for ‘Heightened Vigil’
Top government sources on Thursday said that there is. an indication that the Omicron variant of coronavirus is replacing Delta in India.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray will chair a virtual meeting of the state’s Covid-19 task force on Thursday, a day after Health minister Rajesh Tope expressed concern over the spiralling number of daily cases and termed it as “alarming”.
Maharashtra on Wednesday recorded a spurt in new COVID-19 cases at 3,900, including 85 of Omicron, with the daily count rising by 1,728 from a day before. With the addition of 3,900 cases, which were detected after 1,23,248 coronavirus tests were conducted in the last 24 hours, the statewide infection count shot up to 66,65,386, the health department said.
State capital Mumbai also recorded a sharp rise in COVID-19 cases by clocking 2,510 infections, the highest daily addition since May 8, the civic body said. The state recorded 20 fresh deaths, taking the number of fatalities to 1,41,496, the health department said in a bulletin. It said 1,306 patients were discharged in the last 24 hours, taking the number of recovered cases to 65,06,137.The coronavirus recovery rate in the state is 97.61 per cent, it said.
The World Health Organization on Wednesday warned that a “tsunami” of Omicron and Delta Covid-19 cases will pile pressure on health systems already being stretched to their limits.
The WHO said the Delta and Omicron variants of concern were “twin threats” that were driving new case numbers to record highs, leading to spikes in hospitalisations and deaths.
The WHO said new global cases had risen by 11 percent last week, while the United States and France both registered record daily case numbers on Wednesday.
“I am highly concerned that Omicron, being more transmissible, circulating at the same time as Delta, is leading to a tsunami of cases,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a press conference.
