The widely-in-talks new variant of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Omicron variant, has been in news ever since it was first discovered in South Africa in November. In less than 2 months, the variant has spread globally, impacting traveling and curbing celebrations for the Christmas to New Year holidays.
About 1,000 flights were cancelled on Christmas day in the US due to surging cases of the Omicron variant. Europe is also witnessing a surge in the number of daily Covid-19 cases.
In India, the country’s vaccine task force has cited that the feared third wave of pandemic is almost here, as the number of Covid cases in the country are on the rise, especially in large cities like Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata.
Mum, Del & Kol Contribute 75% Omicron Cases in India
Omicron variant is known to be highly transmissible in nature, about 70 times faster than the delta variant or even the original Covid variant, states a Trak.in report.
The head of the country’s vaccine task force, in a conversation with NDTV said that India is almost at the brink of a third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, adding that a third of the Omicron cases have come from big cities.
Cities like Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai have contributed to 75% of daily infections of the Omicron variant, stated Dr NK Arora, the Chairman of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation.
“We got our first virus right in the first week of December. So, last week, nationally overall, 12% of the variants identified were Omicron and the week gone by in the previous week, it has increased to 28 per cent.
So, it is rapidly increasing as a proportion of all the Covid infections in the country. Now, having said that, I must also say something more important and that is that around the major metro cities, Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and particularly Delhi, it is over 75 per cent of all the isolates now,” added Arora.
There are currently 1,700 cases of the Omicron variant in the country, with 510 reported only in Maharashtra, adds an NDTV report.
“India is clearly in the third wave of COVID-19. And the whole wave seems to be driven by a new variant and today it is Omicron”.
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