COVID-19 News Updates

Odisha reports two cases of Omicron variant of Covid-19, informs ILS Bhubaneswar. One of them had returned to Odisha from Nigeria, the other person had returned from Qatar; one is a resident of Jagatsinghpur, another is from Khordha district.

The daily rise in new coronavirus infections has been recorded below 15,000 for the last 54 days now.

Odisha reported the maiden cases of Omicron with two persons testing positive for the new variant of Covid-19, informed Institute of Life Sciences (ILS), Bhubaneswar on Tuesday. 

The other countries with over 5 million cases are the UK (11,518,116), Russia (10,064,290), Turkey (9,191,851), France (8,745,272), Germany (6,834,488), Iran (6,173,369), Spain (5,535,231), Italy (5,405,360), Argentina (5,395,044) and Colombia (5,109,022), the CSSE figures showed.

About the ongoing vaccination drive, Mandaviya informed the house that with the health workers' diligent efforts, total 88 per cent of the first Covid vaccine dose and 58 per cent of the second have been administered in India as of now, and the majority of the population in India is vaccinated.

INSACOG said that while there are some indicators that the disease may be milder with Omicron, there is insufficient data to determine whether this is because of prior infections or vaccination.

The latest research from South Africa, where Omicron was first reported, suggested that two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine offered 70 per cent effectiveness in reducing the risk of hospitalisation. Israeli researchers have also found that the booster doses of the vaccine works against Omicron.

While the 100 microgram booster dose was "generally safe and well tolerated", however, there "was a trend toward slightly more frequent adverse reactions" following it compared to the authorised dose.

While Omicron was first reported in South Africa on November 24, India's first two cases of this heavily mutated version of the coronavirus were detected in Karnataka on December 2.

The ICMR-Regional Medical Research Centre, NE, Dibrugarh has developed a novel technology -- real-time RT-PCR assay for detection of Omicron (B.1.1.529) variant of SARS-CoV2 and a kit for the same.

India's active caseload is presently at 82,267, lowest in 572 days. Active cases constitute 0.24 per cent of the country's total positive cases, which is the lowest since March 2020.

US continues to be the worst-hit country with the world's highest number of cases and deaths at 50,846,828 and 806,439, according to the CSSE.

The announcement came after the European Commission announced on Thursday that Moderna had agreed to accelerate the delivery of its mRNA vaccine to EU countries.

According to central and state officials, omicron cases have been detected in 11 states and union territories -- Maharashtra (54), Delhi (22), Rajasthan (17) and Karnataka (14), Telangana (20), Gujarat (11), Kerala (11), Andhra Pradesh (1), Chandigarh (1), Tamil Nadu (1) and West Bengal (1).

The genome sequencing reports of four out of the seven Covid positive foreign returnees have come out negative for Omicron.