COVID-19 News Updates

Bhushan therefore asserted that the State Health Department should take required necessary steps to control the spread of infection and reduce fatality by adopting the ongoing strategy of Test-Tract-Treat-Vaccinate-Covid Appropriate Behaviour to keep the situation under control.

Amidst the looming threat of the new ‘Omicron’ variant of Covid-19 virus, the Odisha government said that it is prepared to tackle any situation.

India's Active caseload presently stands at 99,974.

However, the data collected on the history of the doctor who tested positive for the Omicron variant showed that he had contracted the virus locally.

The second worst hit country in terms of cases is India (34,615,757 infections and 470,115 deaths), followed by Brazil (22,129,409 infections and 615,400 deaths).

The new Omicron variant of Coronavirus is touted to be highly transmissible due to the presence of more than 30 mutations on its spike protein, which the virus uses to enter human cells.

The Health Ministry said that given the fast pace of vaccination in India and high exposure to Delta variant as evidenced by high seropositivity, the severity of the disease is anticipated to be low.

As many as 380 people have returned to Odisha from countries hit by the new coronavirus strain-- Omicron, earlier this week, and all of them have tested negative, the State health department had informed on Thursday.

In India, after detection of the first two cases of Omicron infection in Bengaluru, the Karnataka Health department is now worried over 10 South African nationals, who have gone untraceable in Bengaluru.

An increase of 213 cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours.

The second worst hit country in terms of cases is India (34,606,541 infections and 469,724 deaths).

The global health body said that Covid-19 is already a crisis, regardless of the emergence of Omicron. It is because many countries are in "luxurious position" with booster doses, while some do not have enough vaccines to even protect their most vulnerable, The Telegraph reported.

Samples of all the six passengers have been sent to the National Centre for Disease Control for genome sequencing to ascertain if they have the new Omicron strain, which has been classified as a 'variant of concern' by the World Health Organization.

Two people from Karnataka are first in India to have tested positive for the Omicron variant of Covid-19. This information was shared by the Health Ministry on Thursday. The patients are two men aged 66 and 46 whose identities have not been disclosed to protect their privacy.

As many as 53 cases of Covid-19 have so far been detected at the residential college located in Kunjakanta under ward No 2 of Dhenkanal municipality.