New Delhi: With the fresh Omicron cases in Haryana, Kerala and Telangana, the total tally in the country crossed 230 even as several Indian scientists said the third wave of COVID-19 has set in India from mid-December. Haryana on Wednesday registered two fresh Omicron cases after a 33-old-man with travel history to Portugal tested positive for the new variant of COVID-19 in Karnal and another with travel history to Canada tested positive in Faridabad. Meanwhile, Kerala recorded nine Omicron cases with six people in Ernakulam and three in Thiruvananthapuram testing positive for the new variant. All nine patients had foreign travel history. Telangana had reported 14 new infections taking the state’s tally to 38.
Amid rising cases, Haryana Health Minister Anil Vij said from January 1 people who have not got the second dose of Covid-19 vaccine would not be permitted to congested public places like restaurants, malls, banks and offices. “We remember the officers and employees, including doctors and paramedical staff, who have died while rendering their services during Covid-19. A wall of Memory’ has been built at the headquarters of the Health Department, which he himself has inaugurated. So far 28 people of the department have lost their lives,” Anil Vij said.
Haryana issues fresh SOPs amid Omicron threat
The Haryana government banned unvaccinated people from using public places. This has been done to encourage people to get vaccinated against the deadly coronavirus infection.
The Haryana health minister said the new variant Omicron is a matter of concern as the whole world is worrying about it along with the WHO. Vij said he had conducted a survey in which 30 per cent infected people were from outside Haryana in the second wave of pandemic. “But we did work to save their lives by providing additional beds. The government built 500-bedded hospitals in Panipat and Hisar.”
“During the second wave, 15,000 infected people were coming on the daily basis. Due to success in vaccination in the country it is expected that the third wave may not come, but still we are identifying those hospitals which can be utilised in any situation.”
The Health Minister said he passed an order to impose a fine of Rs 500 for not wearing the mask.
Kerala battles Omicron threat
Kerala health minister Veena George confirmed nine fresh Omicron variant cases in the state. Six people in Ernakulam and three in Thiruvananthapuram tested positive for the Omicron variant of COVID-19. With this, the total Omicron tally in the state climbed to 24, Kerala health minister Veena George was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
“In Ernakulam, two people reached from UK, a woman and a boy had reached from Tanzania, another woman had reached from Ghana and one more woman reached from Ireland and had tested positive for the variant. In Trivandrum, a husband, wife and another woman reached from Nigeria,” Veena George said.
Earlier, the Kerala government issued fresh guidelines and made it mandatory for international travellers to undergo self-quarantine amid rising Omicron cases in the state.
14 new Omicron cases push Telangana’s tally to 38
In a spike in Omicron cases, Telangana on Wednesday reported 14 new infections taking the state’s tally to 38, a top health official said. Of the new cases, 12 were detected among passengers who came from other than “at risk” countries while two passengers from “at risk” countries also tested positive for the new variant of Covid-19.
According to Director of Public Health Dr G. Srinivasa Rao, results of genome sequencing test of four more samples are awaited.
The total number of Omicron cases among flyers from other than “at risk” countries rose to 31. Only six cases were reported among passengers from “at risk” countries. The health authorities had Tuesday detected the first local case of Omicron when a contact of the positive case was found infected.
Is India already facing COVID third wave
The third wave of Covid-19 has set in India from mid-December, and it may hit its peak in February next year, several studies by Indian scientists stated amid rising Omicron cases. A yet-to-be peer reviewed study led by a team of researchers from the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), Kanpur used a statistical methodology based on the fitting of a mixture of Gaussian distributions – based on an algorithm for clustering to estimate the parameters, news agency IANS reported.
The third wave was forecast using the data on the first two waves of pandemic. The team also utilised the data of different countries that are already facing the third wave, modelling their daily cases data and predicting the impact and timeline for the third wave in India. The report forecasts India’s third wave of Covid-19 to start around mid-December 2021 and the cases to peak in the beginning of February 2022,” Subhra Sankar Dhar, Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, wrote in the paper.
A separate study led by a joint team from the IITs Hyderabad and Kanpur is based on the Sutra model, which tracks the country’s Covid-19 trajectory. According to Professor M. Vidyasagar of IIT Hyderabad and Maninda Agrawal of IIT Kanpur, the daily caseload is expected to rise as Omicron begins to displace Delta as the dominant variant.
India logged 6,317 fresh Covid cases and 318 deaths in the last 24 hours, the Union health ministry said in its latest update on Wednesday. With the addition of 318 new deaths, the death toll has climbed to 4,78,325. However, out of total Omicron positive, 90 have been discharged. So far 15 states have reported Omicron infection, said the ministry. Delhi (57) has the highest number of Omicron cases 57, closely followed by Maharashtra (54).
(With inputs from agencies)
