Coronavirus India Latest Updates: Two Omicron Cases Detected In Karnataka
Follow the latest updates on the coronavirus pandemic and vaccination numbers in India here.
Maharashtra Government Revises Its Guidelines For Passengers Arriving In The State
In the background of detection of Omicron variant of Covid-19 virus in South Africa and some other countries, and its declaration as a variant of concern by the World Health Organisation, Government of Maharashtra has implemented guidelines for air passengers coming into the state.
In the case of domestic air travel, Passengers will either have to be fully vaccinated or compulsorily carry RT-PCR Test certificate showing negative result within 72 hours before boarding, the state government said.
Two Omicron Cases Detected In Karnataka
Ministry of Health Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal said two cases of the omicron variant of the coronavirus have been detected in Karnataka.
He added that contact tracing has been done for the two patients, who are males aged 66 years and 46 years. The two patients are South Africa returnees and all primary and secondary contacts have been traced and tested.
Possible That Omicron Variant Could Be 5x More Infectious: Government
Ministry of Health Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal, in a press briefing, said that the omicron variant of the coronavirus could be five times more competitively infectious. He added that the variant has more than twice the number of bad spike mutations than Delta.
Agarwal added that it is too early to assess whether the infection causes more severe disease than other variants.
He was citing a study by Dr Eric Feigl-Ding, an American epidemiologist public health scientist who is currently a Senior Fellow at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington DC. He was formerly a faculty member and researcher at Harvard Medical School.
6 Covid-19 Positive Cases Reported In India From 'At-Risk' Countries
Six passengers who flew in from 'at-risk' countries have tested positive for Covid-19 on Dec. 1, the first day of operations under fresh guidelines issued for international travelers by the centre amid renewed concerns surrounding the Omicron variant.
In a press release, the government said a total of 11 international flights landed at various airports of the country except Lucknow, from midnight to 4 p.m. on Dec. 1, from "at risk" countries. These carried 3,476 passengers, which were all administered RT-PCR tests, out of which six were found Covid-19 positive.
"The samples of the Covid-19 positive passengers have been sent to Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) labs for genomic sequencing," it said.
India's active cases rose but stayed below the one-lakh mark, at a time when India and countries across the world have started curbing travel amid concerns regarding the Omicron variant.
As many as 9,765 people tested positive for the coronavirus in the last 24 hours, according to the Health Ministry’s update as of 8 a.m. on Dec. 2. That compares with nearly 8,548 recoveries during the period.
India's active caseload now stands at 99,763, after falling to 99,023 yesterday.
However, India's daily positivity rate, at 0.89%, has stayed less than 2% for the last 59 days whereas the weekly positivity rate at 0.85% has been less than 1% for the last 18 days.
Key Figures:
Total confirmed cases: 3,46,06541
Total number of active cases: 99,763
Total patients cured/discharged/migrated: 3,40,37,054
Total deaths: 4,69,724
Number of fresh cases in last 24 hours: 8,954
One-day recoveries: 85,48
One-day deaths: 477
Vaccines given in the last 24 hours: 80,35,261
Total vaccines administered: 1,24,96,19,515