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Centre reviews Covid-19 readiness; alerts States, UTs

While addressing the country on the arising COVID-19 pandemic situation, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan, quoting WHO, said that Omicron is more transmissible than the Delta variant and also that 89 per cent of the eligible population in India has been vaccinated.

Centre reviews Covid-19 readiness; alerts States, UTs

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The Centre on Friday said that Omicron cases across the country have risen to 358,  scattered in 17 States/UTs of India and that 114 have already recovered from the infections.

While addressing the country on the arising COVID-19 pandemic situation, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan, quoting WHO, said that Omicron is more transmissible than the Delta variant and also that 89 per cent of the eligible population in India has been vaccinated.

The top five states with the highest number of active cases, at the moment, are Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Karnataka, he said.

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The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare preemptively advised states to impose restrictions like night curfew, regulating large gatherings, increasing bed capacity and other logistics and strict enforcement of COVID appropriate behaviour.

Around 89 per cent of the adult population has received the first dose and 61 per cent of the eligible population has received the second dose of COVID-19 vaccines.

India has 18,10,083 isolation beds, 4,94,314 O2 supported beds, 1,39,300 ICU beds, 24,057 pediatric ICU beds and 64,796 pediatric non-ICU beds available nationally.

The world is witnessing the fourth surge and the overall positivity is 6.1 per cent. Therefore, we have to be on guard and we can’t afford to slacken, said Bhushan.

While Europe, North America and Africa are seeing an increase in COVID-19 cases week-on-week, Asia is still witnessing a decline in cases during the same time span.

Omicron cases double within 1.5-3 days, so we have to remain vigilant with covid appropriate behaviour.

The predominant strain in India is Delta including the recently identified clusters. Therefore, we need to continue with the same strategy of Covid appropriate behaviour and ramping up of vaccination.

The treatment protocols for COVID-19 and Delta will apply to Omicron.

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