The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will stay away from changing key rates - including the reverse repo rate - this fiscal in the backdrop of Omicron. However, it will continue to shape the rate movements through liquidity market operations. Soumya Kanti Ghosh, group chief economic advisor, State Bank of India, said whether Omicron surge or not, there is not going to be any hike this year. However, the central bank may continue to shape rates through market operations.
'If you think you think you're going to booster yourself out of the pandemic, in COVID-19's case, you can forget it.'
PowerGrid was the top loser in the Sensex pack, shedding over 4 per cent, followed by Reliance Industries, Asian Paints, Kotak Bank, Tech Mahindra and Bharti Airtel. NSE Nifty tanked 204.95 points to 17,196.70.
Volatility is likely to continue in the stock market this week amid Omicron uncertainty and the RBI monetary policy meeting will be a key driver for benchmark indices going ahead, say analysts. It will be an event-packed week for the markets, with RBI policy and several macroeconomic numbers scheduled to be announced, they added. "Volatility is likely to continue amid Omicron uncertainty, RBI credit policy, and macroeconomic numbers. "There are lots of news flows on the Omicron variant which are causing volatility in the market while on the domestic front we will have the outcome of an important monetary policy of RBI that is scheduled on December 8. "We will also have our IIP and inflation numbers this week however they will be released on Friday after market hours," said Santosh Meena, Head of Research, Swastika Investmart Ltd.
Ministry of health and family welfare adds Hong Kong and Israel to the list of countries from where travellers would need to follow additional measures on arrival in India, including post-arrival testing considering the detection of new COVID variant 'Omicron' in South Africa.
Sources said three cases of Omicron subvariant BF.7, apparently the strain driving China's current surge of COVID cases, have been detected in India so far.
The average age of those who died was 80.3, and 90 per cent of the fatalities were aged 65 or over, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.
As per the official announcement by Delhi government, the teachers will be deployed from December 31, 2022, until January 15, 2023, to ensure COVID-appropriate behaviour is followed at Delhi Airport.
Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya will visit AIIMS, Jhajjar on April 10 to oversee the mock drill, officials said on Sunday.
The sources said that of the 124 positive samples, genome sequencing results of 40 were received of which XBB, including XBB.1, was found in 14 samples and BF 7.4.1 in one sample.
IndiGo on Wednesday reported a net loss of Rs 1,681 crore in the quarter ending March due to Omicron wave, high fuel costs and weakening rupee. This year's Q4 loss was 46.6 per cent more than the loss incurred by the airline in the corresponding period a year ago, the airline's statement mentioned. India's largest airline's total net loss of 2021-22 was Rs 6,161 crore as compared to Rs 5,806 crore net loss that it incurred in 2020-21, it mentioned.
'Who are the people who are dying?' 'What is their profile?' 'We need to know these things.' 'We do not take health issues seriously.'
The report came at the time when British-based health data firm Airfinity, said that the infections in China are likely to be more than one million a day with deaths at more than 5,000 a day.
Modi gave directions to officials during a high-level meeting to review the status of COVID-19 and Omicron, the new variant of concern (VOC), and said "we should be 'satark' (vigilant) and 'saavdhan' (cautious)".
The new outbreak may be the greatest wave of illnesses ever recorded since China's stringent zero-Covid programme was abandoned last winter, which resulted in up to 85 per cent of the population being sick at the time.
According to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), top officials, including the country's leader Kim Jong Un, held a crisis politburo meeting to discuss the outbreak and announced they would implement a 'maximum emergency' virus control system.
'Viral infections rise in winter and better care needs to be taken in the next few months.'
A third of the global economy will be in recession this year, the IMF chief has said, and warned that 2023 will be "tougher" than last year as the US, EU and China will see their economies slow down. Kristalina Georgieva, the chief of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) made these grim assertions on Sunday during a CBS news programme "Face the Nation." It comes at a time when the ongoing conflict in Ukraine shows no signs of abating after more than 10 months, with spiralling inflation, higher interest rates and the surge in coronavirus infections in China fuelled by the Omicron variant.
Of the 230 samples from Mumbai, 228 samples are of Omicron variant, while one was found to be Kappa variant and another XE variant. The condition of the patients infected with the new strains of the virus was not serious, a BMC official said.
The country saw 1,702 new cases of Omicron variant, the highest in a single day so far, and an increase of 28.17 per cent since Saturday.
With variants cropping up at regular intervals, Jha acknowledged that they are a concern as a very rapid evolution of this virus is being seen over the time.
We cannot predict tomorrow, Health Minister Mandaviya said.
In accordance with ''Level-1'' alert under the graded response action plan (GRAP), private offices will function with physical attendance of 50 per cent of the staff, barring essential categories.
Experts said the strain has not propelled a surge in cases like Omicron, but advised strict adherence to COVID-19-appropriate behaviour.
He also said that genome sequencing for Omicron detection is underway for such passengers.
According to some experts, there is not much difference in the number of seasonal flu cases and that of COVID-19, even though they stressed that surveillance for newer variants should continue in the off chance of a new lineage of coronavirus catching the country off guard.
'If your oxygen saturation is okay and is maintained after the six-minute walk test -- which has been described all over the world -- and you do not have an unrelenting fever, then you can even be managed at home.'
The government on Thursday took a series of measures in view of the rising number of COVID-19 cases in several parts of the world, including China.
A total of 8,209 cases of the Omicron variant have been detected across 29 states and union territories, out of which 3,109 have recovered or migrated.
Not more than 100 persons in enclosed spaces and 250 persons in open spaces were allowed to attend a marriage function or a social, cultural, political and religious gathering earlier.
It also demanded that the government expedite the proposal of vaccinating individuals aged 12 to 18 years.
Schools across the state were closed in the first week of January due to a spike in the coronavirus cases and in the wake of the emergence of the highly infectious Omicron variant.
Macroeconomic data announcement, Omicron situation and global trends will be the major driving factors for the equity market in the first week of the new year 2022, according to analysts. In what turned out to be a historic year, the Indian stock indices went past multiple milestones and the 30-share Sensex made an annual gain of 10,502.49 points or 21.99 per cent in 2021. Religare Broking Vice-President (Research) Ajit Mishra said, "This week marks the beginning of a new month and participants will be closely eyeing some crucial high-frequency data like monthly auto sales, India manufacturing PMI and India services PMI. "Besides, updates on the COVID-19 situation and performance of global markets will also be critical."
Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata have already reached their peak in case numbers in the past seven days, said Manindra Agrawal, a professor at IIT Kanpur and one of the researchers associated with the Sutra Covid model.
The remarks of Dr Parvaiz Koul, director of the SKIMS Hospital in Kashmir, came in the backdrop of the highly transmissible Omicron strains, mostly BF.7, causing a spike in coronavirus cases in many countries, including China.
Delhi reported 290 fresh Covid cases on Sunday with a positivity rate of 0.55 per cent, while the number of new cases and the positivity rate rose to 331 and 0.68 per cent respectively on Monday.
Serum Institute of India (SII) CEO Adar Poonawalla on Wednesday said it has restarted manufacturing of Covid-19 vaccine Covishield amid rising numbers of cases of the virus infection.
"In children, fortunately, infections with SARS-CoV-2 are generally not severe. There is a risk of long COVID, there is a risk of a very, very rare condition called MISC (Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome) but by and large healthy children have nothing," said Dr Gagandeep Kang, leading Indian virologist.
The COVID-19 vaccines can be "tweaked" to provide protection against new variants of the virus, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi, Director Dr Randeep Guleria said.
'In India, a deadly wave of infection with the Delta variant stole 240,000 lives between April and June and disrupted economic recovery. Similar episodes could take place in the near term,' said the report.
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