COVID-19 News Updates

Omicron Threat: AIIMS New Delhi Chief on Hospitalization & Illness.

The Odisha government is also not leaving any stone unturned to combat the eventualities arising out of the new Covid variant. The State Chief Secretary on Wednesday chaired a high-level meeting to discuss the situation and chalk out a roadmap to deal with any emergency situation arising out of the new Covid variant.

Naveen Patnaik’s appeal came a day after Odisha has reported its first two cases of the Omicron infection on Tuesday. While one of the patients who tested positive for Omicron had returned from Nigeria, the other is an arrival from Qatar.

Last week, Europe and central Asia saw 27,000 additional Covid-19 deaths and 2.6 million new cases.

The Omicron infection tally has climbed at 213 across the nation. However, out of total Omicron positive, 90 have been discharged

US continues to be the worst-hit country with the world's highest number of cases and deaths at 51,272,854 and 810,045, according to the CSSE.

The Union Health Ministry said that the number of cases of new Covid strain Omicron has crossed the 200 -mark in India.

The states have been advised that the main elements of the framework to be used should be based on the test positivity rate of 10 per cent or more in the last one week and on bed occupancy of 40 per cent or more on oxygen supported or ICU beds.

The INSACOG reports genomic surveillance of SARS CoV-2 across the country through sequencing of samples from 'sentinel sites' and also a detailed statewise district analysis for some states.

The study is in tandem with preliminary studies showing that several clinically used antibodies lose neutralising activity against Omicron's spike-expressing recombinant lentiviral or vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV)-based pseudoviruses, the researchers said.

A portion of Jayadurga Nagar in Bhubaneswar's Bomikhal was declared as a containment zone on Tuesday by the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) after detection of two COVID positive patients from the area.

After ILS (Institute of Life Sciences) Bhubaneswar confirmed detection of two ‘Omicron’ variant cases in Odisha, state Public Health Director, Niranjan Mishra on Tuesday (Dec 21) revealed more information on the newly detected cases.

The decline in effectiveness begins to first appear at around three months, when the risk of hospitalisation and death is double that of two weeks after the second dose.

Despite having three mutations that were predicted to favour the spike cleavage, the researchers found the Omicron spike protein to be less efficient than the Delta spike at cleaving the ACE2 receptor and entering the lung cells.

Tedros said the "fastest way" to get back to normal is to make "hard decisions," this festive season amid the Omicron Covid-19 variant's quick spread.