COVID-19 News Updates

Urging people to get vaccinated with second doses, Paul said the the increased Covid vaccine uptake is the need of the hour and urged people not to delay in getting fully vaccinated.

The sample was collected from a 46-year-old person on November 22 and sent to the NCBS lab. His result has also shown that he is positive for Omicron virus. He was kept in home isolation first and later shifted to hospital.

According to officials, the first infected person arrived from South Africa on November 1 and the second one between November 15 and 20. The first infected person has completed quarantine and is healthy and the second one is also asymptomatic and all right, sources said.

"It is too early to assess whether Omicron causes more severe infection or less compared to variants, including Delta," the official told the press conference quoting the World Health Organisation which has designated the new variant as a 'variant of concern'.

Odisha had set a target to complete 90 per cent vaccination as per Modi government's 'Har Ghar Dastak' or the door-to-door Covid-19 vaccination campaign.

With the fear of the newly-detected Covid variant ‘Omicron’ gripping the state, Odisha Public Health Director, Niranjan Mishra on Thursday (Dec 2) informed that 380 persons have so far returned to Odisha from "at-risk countries".

Amidst fear of the new Covid-19 variant ‘Omicron’ in the country, as many as 33 students of a Plus-2 residential college at Kunjakanta under ward No 2 of Dhenkanal Municipality, tested positive for the virus on Wednesday (Dec 1).

Like several states in India, Odisha too has stepped up surveillance activities as 380 persons have reportedly returned to the State from destinations which have been tagged as ‘at risk nations’ by the Centre.

A show-cause notice has also been issued to the concerned authorities of the Residential College for allowing students to vacate the building without following the requisite protocols.

An increase of 740 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 (34,596,776 infections and 469,247 deaths)

Following the detection of the positive cases, Dhenkanal Collector Saroj Kumar Sethy has declared Kunjakanta area as Containment zone for a period of 10 days from December 1 to December 10

The countrywide vaccination drive was rolled out on January 16 with healthcare workers (HCWs) getting inoculated in the first phase. The vaccination of frontline workers (FLWs) started from February 2.

"Now, the random sampling would be limited to 2 per cent as per latest MoHFW (Ministry of Health and Family Welfare) guidelines and it would be on self-paid basis. Airlines/Airports may coordinate with the officials of State/UT governments to select the passenger at random sampling," the ministry said in a release.

Highlighting that Odisha was able to control the first and second waves of Covid-19 successfully despite the challenging situations, Naveen Patnaik said it was due to its cautious approach towards the pandemic since outbreak.