COVID-19 News Updates

The home secretary said on December 23, Prime Minister Narendra Modi reviewed the status of COVID-19, Omicron VOC and preparedness of health systems across the country.

Over 25 lakh eligible beneficiaries between 15-18 years age group in Odisha will start receiving doses from January 3.     

As far as Covid positivity rate is concerned, situation in Odisha is much better as compared to other states. This was informed by the state Public Health Director Niranjan Mishra on Monday.

Meanwhile, various state governments have announced curbs to stem the worsening situation due to the Omicron variant. The night curfew has been imposed in Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Delhi, Karnataka, Assam, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.

While studies show Omicron is less severe in terms of hospitalisations, Fauci stressed that people should not "to get complacent" because "when you have such a high volume of new infections, it might override a real diminution in severity."

With 6,531 people testing positive for coronavirus infections in a day India's total tally of COVID-19 cases rose to 3,47,93,333, while the active cases declined to 75,841.

Dr NK Arora, chairperson of Covid-19 working group of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation in India (NTAGI), has highlighted the benefits of starting immunization of adolescents in the 15-18 years age group, kicking off on January 3, 2022.

The second worst hit country in terms of cases is India (34,786,802 infections and 479,682 deaths)

China's disciplinary body announced the punishments of the officials on Friday, the latest state reprimands under Beijing's strict zero Covid approach.

Director of Health Services, Bijay Mohapatra said that already steps have begun for collection of district-wise data of the eligible population in the age group of 15 to 18 years.

On the ongoing RDA strike which has hit all the medical services in the national capital, the IMA said that the issue of expediting PG counselling is the need of the hour to increase manpower ahead of the looming third wave threat.

Odisha’s Omicron tally jumps to 8 after 4 more foreign returnees test positive for the new variant of Covid-19. Their positive samples were genome sequenced at Institute of Life Sciences in Bhubaneswar.

India charts a separate way. Addressing the nation on Saturday, PM Narendra Modi announced that children in the 15-18 years age group will now get COVID-19 vaccines starting 3rd January 2022. The government has also decided that precaution dose of vaccine will be started for frontline workers and healthcare workers and elderly with co-morbid conditions.

So far 17 states have reported cases of Omicron infection, the Union health ministry said.

The detection of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 has been reported to the State Health Department by the Institute of Life Sciences (ILS) in Bhubaneswar which is conducting the genome sequencing of the positive cases of coronavirus infection.