Currently, the top five states with the highest number of active cases are Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Karnataka.
The Health Ministry said during a press conference on Friday on rising cases of the new COVID-19 variant Omicron that of the 183 Omicron cases analyzed so far, 91% were completely vaccinated with three booster shots, 70% were asymptomatic and 61% were male.
Here are the top points from the briefing:
- The world is witnessing a fourth surge and the overall positivity is 6.1%. Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said, therefore, we have to be careful and we cannot risk a slowdown, “While Europe, North America and Africa are seeing a week-on-week increase in COVID19 cases, Asia is still Week-on-week decline in cases is being observed.”
- The top five states with the highest number of active cases at present are Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Karnataka, he said, adding that there are 358 omicron cases across 17 states/UTs of India. The number of people who have been cured is 114.
- The Union Health Secretary said, “Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on December 21 had advised the states to impose restrictions like night curfew, control large gatherings. Increase bed capacity and other logistics and be COVID-appropriate. Strictly enforce the behavior.”
- The official said that 89% of the adult population has received the first dose and 61% of the eligible population has received the second dose of COVID19 vaccines.
- Today we have 18,10,083 isolation beds, 4,94,314 O2 supported beds, 1,39,300 ICU beds, 24,057 pediatric ICU beds and 64,796 pediatric non-ICU beds available nationally.
- The major stress delta in India including the recently identified clusters. Hence, we need to continue with the same strategy of proper treatment of COVID and vaccination, said Dr. Balram Bhargava, DG-ICMR.
- The WHO said on 7 December that Omicron has a significant development advantage over the delta, meaning it has greater transmission capacity. Bhushan said that within 1.5-3 days the cases of omicron doubles, so we have to be cautious with proper handling of covid.
- “Treatment protocols for COVID-19 and Delta will apply to Omicron. While the evidence emerges, immunity for Delta is high and its high transmission rate will lead to a high increase in cases.”
- There was a 10-fold increase in oxygen demand from the first wave to the second. Thus, 18,800 metric tonnes of medical oxygen has been arranged per day; He said that there are 11 states where vaccination coverage is less than the national average.
- On booster shots, Dr. Bhargava said, “Deliberations are going on, we are reviewing scientific data for policy making.” ICMR and DBT are working together to culture the virus. “We are testing the efficacy of the vaccines against the Omicron version of COVID19,” he said.
(with PTI and ANI inputs)
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