Over 100 Omicron cases in India, time to avoid unnecessary travel: Govt

New Delhi, Dec 17: The omicron variant of the coronavirus likely to outpace Delta in the coming days, the Health Ministry said on Friday, warning that the new variant has already accounted for 2.4 per cent of all COVID-19 cases in the world.

Addressing a press briefing, Lav Agrawal, Joint Secretary, Health Ministry said "there are 101 Omicron cases across 11 states in the country, sao far".

"Omicron variant reported in 91 countries in the world. WHO has said that Omicron is spreading faster than the Delta variant in South Africa where Delta circulation was low. It's likely Omicron will outpace Delta variant where community transmission occurs, WHO added," he said.

There are 19 districts which are at high risk of surge in COVID-19 cases and this is irrespective of the variant driving the surge, the Health Ministry said in its scheduled Friday briefing.

"...If we look at the scale of spread in the UK & if there is a similar outbreak in India, then given our population, there will be 14 lakh cases every day...," Dr. VK Paul, Member-Health, Niti Aayog said at a Health Ministry press briefing on COVID-19.

"New daily cases were recorded below 10,000 for the past 20 days. The case positivity for the last 1 week was 0.65%. Currently, Kerala contributes 40.31% to the total number of active cases in the country," he said.

"India is administering COVID19 vaccine doses at the highest rate in the world and the daily rate of doses administered is 4.8 times the rate of doses administered in the USA and 12.5 times the rate of doses administered in the UK," he added.

On the emergence of Omicron variant of COVID19, Dr. Balram Bhargava, DG ICMR warned that "This is the time to avoid non-essential travel, mass gatherings and it is very important to observe low-intensity festivities."