With Four New Omicron Cases, Rajasthan Has Second Highest Infections After Maharashtra. India Tally At 42

Maharashtra currently has 18 patients infected by the new variant while Rajasthan detected 13 people as being positive for Omicron.

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New Delhi: Rajasthan on Monday reported four fresh cases of COVID-19’s Omicron variant, taking the total number of infected people in the state to 13, as per state health officials.

With this, Rajasthan now stands second after Maharashtra as the state with the highest number of Omicron-infected patients.

Maharashtra currently has 18 patients infected by the new variant while Rajasthan detected 13 people as being positive for Omicron.

Out of them, 9 tested negative later and were sent home, news agency IANS reported.

With the fresh infections, the total tally of Omicron-infected patients across the country has reached 42.

About the new Omicron cases in Rajasthan, Jaipur CMHO Narottam Sharma informed: “Besides four members of a family who tested positive for Omicron after returning from South Africa, their family members in Adarsh Nagar Janata Colony had also come in contact with them. While five people were earlier found infected with Omicron, the report of the remaining four people has also been found positive”, IANS reported.

Besides this, the genome sequencing reports of people who have returned from abroad in the past few days are yet to come to Jaipur. The people whose reports are awaited include travellers who returned from Ukraine, four family members who returned from Germany, and two persons who returned from the US. Samples of these people were sent for testing.

Besides Rajasthan and Maharashtra, three Omicron patients were detected in Gujarat and Karnataka respectively while Delhi has two cases. Chandigarh, Kerala, and Andhra Pradesh reported their first Omicron cases on Sunday.

Last week, Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary, Union Health Ministry had informed that all detected Omicron cases had “mild symptoms”. “Less than 0.04% of total variants were detected,” he had said. Dr VK Paul, NITI Aayog member (health), said people are operating at a “risky and unacceptable” level, stressing that both masks and vaccines are important for protection against Coronavirus disease.

(With Agency Inputs)