Threat of Omicron virus on the rise, 10 countries under high alert says, govt

Union health ministry on Friday issued a fresh warning against Covid-19 pandemic in the wake of the rise in Omicron cases, the newest variant of SARS-CoV-2. On December 23, the world recorded over 9 lakh Covid-19 cases, which indicates a fresh wave of the pandemic, health secretary Rajesh Bhushan said on Friday during the ministry's weekly press briefing. Rajesh Bhushan said that the average number of new cases in India for two weeks is close to seven thousand. Ten thousand new cases are coming from last four weeks. But we have to be constantly vigilant. The world has seen four waves of the corona. India has seen two, in September 2020 and in May 2021. Globally, the positivity rate is over 6 per cent. In India it is 5.3 per cent, but last week it was 0.6 per cent in India. The positivity rate is 6.1 per cent in Kerala and 8.2 per cent in Mizoram. This is worrying. Both places have very high positivity rates.

In these two states, in the total investigation, less tests are being done instead of 60-70 per cent in RTPCR test. There are 20 districts in the country where case positivity is more than 5% and less than 10%. Of these, 9 districts are in Kerala and eight in Mizoram. Two districts have a positivity rate of more than 10 per cent. Ten countries like Europe, Norway, Canada have the highest number of omicron cases in covid cases. 1 million in 108 countries of the world. He said that based on 183 omicron analysis in India, it was found that there were 121 foreign travel histories while trying to find the contacts of 18. Ministry of Health and Family Welfare preemptively advised States on 21st December -to impose restrictions like night curfew, regulating large gatherings. increase bed capacity and other logistics and strict enforcement of COVID appropriate behavior: Union Health Secretary 89% of the adult population has received the first dose and 61% of the eligible population has received the second dose of COVID19 vaccines: Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan. The top five states with the highest number of active cases, at the moment, are Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Karnataka.