COVID-19 News Updates

All major Covid 19 vaccines have been developed against the original strain of SARS CoV-2. While these have proved highly effective, they need to be reinvented to combat newer variants like Omicron which has the potential to escape vaccine immunity.

According to official data released on January 13, the CISF accounts for over 33 per cent of all active Covid cases in the paramilitary forces so far and most of its troopers who have tested positive are deployed at airports.

A group of around 35 doctors from across the country have written an open letter to the union health ministry over the unwarranted testing, medication and hospitalisation during the ongoing Covid pandemic and sought urgent intervention for an evidence-based response to the current wave.

Owing to the third wave surge these days, the Capital Hospital has been struggling to maintain healthcare services up to the mark.

As many as 11 places were declared micro containment zones by the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) today from where multiple cases of Covid infections have been detected. 

The Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) has sealed the court premises of the Cuttack Civil Judge, District & Sessions Judge and Sub-Divisional Judicial Magistrate (SDJM) in Cuttack on Friday marking them as containment zones following detection of multiple Covid positive cases.

The WHO also made a conditional recommendation for the use of the monoclonal antibody sotrovimab in patients with non-severe Covid-19, but only in those at highest risk of hospitalisation, reflecting trivial benefits in those at lower risk.

Meanwhile, the doors of Srimandir have remained closed for the public since January 10. The shrine will remain shut till January 31 in view of the rising cases of Coronavirus in the State and also the detection of some cases in the shrine.

There has been a 4.83 per cent increase in Omicron cases since Thursday.

South Africa, where the Omicron variant was first reported, saw a 9 per cent fall in weekly infections.

Odisha so far has tested 26,479,398 samples, including 75,731 in the last 24 hours, for Covid-19 while the test positivity rate stood 13.5 per cent in the State.

The recent Covid-19 surge in the US driven by the highly infectious Omicron variant is leading to record high hospitalisations, and critical shortage of healthcare staff.

The second worst hit country in terms of cases is India (36,317,927 infections and 485,035 deaths), followed by Brazil (22,822,177 infections and 620,830 deaths).

The health department said all elective surgeries are to be stopped and emergency surgeries need to be taken up with universal precautions. It prohibited entry of media representatives inside OPD and IPD of hospitals.    

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