With 1525 new Omicron Covid-19 cases on Saturday and the positivity rate increasing to 2.55 %, India is heading towards the third wave of Covid-19 pandemic—adding more than 27,553 new Covid cases during the past 24 hours.

Though the Omicron version of Covid-19 is mostly confined to populated metropolitan cities, it has already registered its presence in 23 states and Union Territories. The cause of worry is the exponential increase in covid cases up from 6987 new cases last week to 27,553 cases on Saturday—more than 294 % increase in mere Seven days.

Last Sunday the total number of active cases was 76,766, which has increased to 122801 active cases—a nearly 60 % increase in active cases. The daily positivity rate also reveals the seriousness of the situation—Last Sunday the Government claimed that the daily positivity rate has come down to 0.74 % against the Daily positivity rate of 2.55 % on Saturday.

According to the data released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the most omicron affected states in India is Maharashtra (460 new Omicron cases), Delhi (351 new Omicron cases), Gujarat (136 new Omicron cases), Tamil Nadu (117 new Omicron cases), and Kerala (109 new Omicron cases).

Most of the cases reported are from populated towns of the states and rural areas are still unaffected by the new variant of the virus, admitted a senior officer of the Health Ministry.

The government, however, claimed that the recovery rate has not shown any alarming increase and continues to hover over 98 % during the past fortnight. The Ministry further claimed that as of now, there is no alarming increase in hospital admissions due to Covid-19, and most of the newly detected cases were being treated at home.

India also continues to expand its testing capabilities across the country.  It conducted more than 10 lakh tests on Saturday increasing the total number of tests to 68 crores, the Ministry stated.

On the vaccination front also, India’s vaccination coverage has also increased to 145.55 crore doses in 1,55,58,060 sessions. Another 19.81 crore unused vaccines are still lying with the states and Union Territories, the Ministry said.