COVID-19
India reports 22,775 new COVID-19 cases in 24 hours, 'Omicron' tally touches 1,431
New Delhi/IBNS: In another jump in daily positive cases, India, which was battered by the second wave of COVID-19, has added 22,775 new infections in the last 24 hours besides 406 deaths apparently linked to the contagion in the last 24 hours, the Union Health Ministry said on Saturday.
In the same span of time, 8,949 COVID-19 patients have recovered, further pushing down the recovery rate to 98.32%.
The active cases now account for 0.30% of the total number of cases so far being reported in the vast country of 1.3 billion people.
The tally of 'Omicron' further swells with 1,431 people being confirmed suffering from the new coronavirus variant, which was first detected in Africa.
With more than 100 cases, Maharashtra (454), Delhi (351), Tamil Nadu (118), Gujarat (115) and Kerala (109) top the list.
Restrictions and night curfew have already been placed in Maharashtra and Delhi to stem the coronavirus spread, in a similar scenario to that of 2020 and 2021.
The spike in cases across the country and not just in Maharashtra and Delhi is largely attributed to the Christmas and New Year celebrations.
The health experts, who have raised the issue of massie congregations and non usage of masks largely, have warned of getting the health facilities overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients soon.
Not just the celebrations, five states including the most populous one, Uttar Pradesh, are bracing for high-voltage assembly elections, which are expected to be held within a couple of months' time.
Visuals of massive crowds (mostly maskless) are emerging from various rallies in Uttar Pradesh, where none less than Prime Minister Narendra Modi is busy campaigning hard to build up to the elections.
Though the Allahabad High Court had flagged the COVID-19 spike and requested both the Election Commission of India (ECI) and Modi to postpone elections, the poll body earlier this week said all political parties are in favour of the electoral contest on time.
Chief Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra said the parties have raised the violation of COVID-19 norms in political rallies and demanded the curbs in place.
Not walking into the road of blanket curbs, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is mulling the closure of schools and colleges besides creating containment zones. Christmas and New Year celebrations were in full swing in the state, which reported over 3,000 cases on Friday.
In Telangana, the high court on Friday issued no direction to the government to impose fresh anti-COVID-19 curbs but asked the administration to comply with the central guidelines.
Support Our Journalism
We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism
IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.
Support objective journalism for a small contribution.
