India's Omicron tally at 358, sees biggest single day jump: A state-wise breakup

New Delhi, Dec 24: India has recorded 358 cases of the Omicron variant of coronavirus across, according to data collated from across the states by health ministry. As many as 114 patients have so far recovered from the Omicron variant, the government said on Friday.

In a biggest single-day jump, India reported more than 100 cases of the Omicron variant, as the government said in its last update a day prior that the nationwide tally was 238.

Maharashtra has recorded the highest number of 88 cases of the Omicron variant, followed by Delhi with 67, Telangana 38, Tamil Nadu 34, Karnataka 31 and Gujarat 30.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired a high-level meeting on Thursday to review the status of Covid-19 and Omicron, the new Variant of Concern (VOC), public health response measures for containment and management of COVID19, strengthening of health infrastructure including availability of drugs, oxygen cylinders and concentrators, ventilators, PSA plants, ICU/oxygen supported beds, human resources, IT interventions and status of vaccination.

In view of the new variant, we should be Satark and Saavdhan, the PM directed. The fight against the pandemic is not over, he said, and the need for continued adherence to COVID safe behaviour is of paramount importance even today.

PM directed the officials to ensure that the health systems in the states, beginning from the district level, are strengthened to meet any challenge posed by the new variant. It is important for States to ensure that the Oxygen supply equipments are installed and fully functional, he instructed the officials.

He directed the officials to work with the states on a regular basis and review the status of preparedness of various components of health infrastructure including training and capacity building of human resources, timely availability of ambulances, readiness of states to operationalise COVID facilities for institutional quarantining, and effective and supervised monitoring of those in home isolation. He also directed officials for effective use of IT tools for tele-medicine and tele-consultation.

Heightened and close monitoring of emerging clusters and hotspots through and active, prompt and effective surveillance should continue, he stated. He directed for sending a good number of positive samples for genome sequencing to INSACOG Labs in a prompt manner.

PM Modi also directed to for accelerating the testing to ensure quick identification of cases for timely containment and treatment. Focus should also be on effective contact tracing for curbing spread of the transmission, he stated. PM directed officials that the Central Government should send teams to states with low vaccination, rising cases, insufficient health infrastructure to assist them improve the situation.