Tag: Omicron Variant

Official sources said Modi will take stock of the pandemic situation across the country On Thursday.

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.

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

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.

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 unprecedented infectiousness of the Omicron variant and its possible ability to evade the immune system have stoked concerns across the nation. However, experts said preliminary data suggest the new variant appear to cause less severe symptoms and hospitalisations.

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.

Vaccines help teach the body how to fight Covid. But the current ones in use were not designed to combat the heavily-mutated Omicron variant, meaning they are not a perfect match.

Allying fears that followed the rumours about the infected returnee, Public Health Director, Niranjan Mishra said, "We have no evidence related to this, but the district administration has been asked to submit details."

A strict surveillance is now being kept on the incoming visitors to the State, especially on the foreign returnees from other countries. The Centre had earlier asked States to mark separate isolation facilities for all the patients infected with the Omicron variant particularly in the designated Covid treatment facilities in their respective jurisdictions.

Asked about it, a senior Health Department official said: "We cannot confirm whether he is negative from a single test. At least two tests are required and we have collected his specimen today."

WHO Director General Tedros A. Ghebreyesus said that a total of 77 countries have reported Omicron cases so far but the reality is that this variant is probably yet to be detected in some countries.

Fully vaccinated people will not be that much critical if they are infected by Omicron. There is also a less chance of hospitalisation and death for them

While one person, who was fully vaccinated, required hospitalisation, none of the Omicron patients died.