Amid mounting concerns over the new 'XE' variant of Covid and a day after the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation reported its first case in Mumbai, Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope on Thursday said the state health department has not received any confirmation about the variant and thus cannot confirm it.
"As of now, there is no data from any country to suggest these new subvariants are more clinically severe," Chief scientist at WHO clarified.
The metropolis saw an upward trend in daily COVID-19 cases in the second week of October.
'Seek medical help if after five days of the first symptom the fever has not subsided.'
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)".
Videos circulating in China's social media showed clinics in Beijing and some other cities flooded with patients with queues extending onto footpaths with people patiently waiting for their turn in the cold winter.
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.
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.
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.
He also said that genome sequencing for Omicron detection is underway for such passengers.
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.
'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.'
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.
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.
We cannot predict tomorrow, Health Minister Mandaviya said.
Experts said the strain has not propelled a surge in cases like Omicron, but advised strict adherence to COVID-19-appropriate behaviour.
It also demanded that the government expedite the proposal of vaccinating individuals aged 12 to 18 years.
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.
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."
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.
According to Rajeev Jayadevan, co-chairman, national Indian Medical Association Covid Task Force, the current scenario qualifies as a wave.
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.
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.
"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.
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.
Investors' wealth on Friday tumbled by over Rs 4.65 lakh crore as markets suffered a heavy selloff following weak global trends and continued selling by foreign institutional investors. The 30-share BSE benchmark Sensex plunged 889.40 points or 1.54 per cent to close at 57,011.74. During the day, it tumbled 950.16 points to 56,950.98. The market capitalisation of BSE-listed companies declined by Rs 465,570.82 crore to Rs 2,59,37,277.66 crore amid weak sentiments.
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.
'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.
In his remarks at the meeting, the prime minister underlined the importance of vaccination and the need to further accelerate the 'Har Ghar Dastak' programme to achieve 100 per cent vaccination coverage.
'In our ICUs, the majority are unvaccinated people.' 'Out of the hospital, in the community, we see that -- whether you are vaccinated or whether you're not vaccinated -- the symptoms are more or less the same.'
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.
As the Omicron strain spreads across the globe and questions on vaccine inequity dominate discussions, scientists are still scrambling to learn more about emerging variants of the deadly virus that has claimed millions of lives and crippled economies.
Citing the massive surge in Omicron infections and the resultant impact on overall economic activities in the March quarter, Swiss brokerage UBS Securities has revised downwards its India's growth forecast for the current financial year to 9.1 per cent from 9.5 per cent earlier. However, UBS Securities does not see the third wave impact extending to the next financial year as it has revised upwards its real GDP forecast to 8.2 per cent, up from 7.7 per cent earlier, expecting the real GDP growth to remain well above the historical average. The World Bank pegs it at 8.3 per cent, unchanged from its June assessment, saying the recovery is not broad-based yet.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has classified the EG.5 strain of the SARS-CoV-2 virus circulating in different parts of the world, including India, as a 'variant of interest' but said it did not seem to pose more of a threat to public health than other strains.
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.
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.
Interacting with reporters, he said experts have been saying that the spike in Covid cases in Delhi should be considered largely due to the Omicron variant.
'In the likelihood that Omicron is circulating, you have a much greater chance of getting infected now, than you did during the Age of Delta.'
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.
