Desk,17-Dec; Ten new Omicron cases were logged in Delhi this morning a day after the city saw the sharpest daily spike in coronavirus cases in nearly four months with 85 fresh infections. Across India, over 90 cases of the new variant have been registered so far.Delhi has reported 20 cases of the new variant since the first case was logged on December 5. Ten of these patients have been discharged, Health Minister Satyendar Jain said today, adding that many international passengers have been testing positive for Covid.Maharashtra, the state with the highest overall Covid cases, has so far recorded the most number of Omicron cases at 32. Karnataka, Gujarat, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, and Andhra Pradesh are the other states that registered patients affected by the new variant, said to be highly transmissibleIn Karnataka, five more cases were recorded on Thursday, Health Minister Dr Sudhakar K said, taking the total number of cases in the southern state to eight. “Five more cases of Omicron have been detected in Karnataka today: 19 yr male returning from UK, 36 yr male returning from Delhi, 70 yr female returning from Delhi, 52 yr male returning from Nigeria, 33 yr male returning from South Africa (sic),” his tweet read.The centre has told states to step up surveillance and genome sequencing amid fresh concerns. New travel rules have tightened restrictions at airports.With 11,708 cases, the United Kindom tops the list of the countries affected by the new variant, followed by Denmark that has seen 9,009 patients. Norway has the third-highest number of cases (1,792) in this list followed by South Africa (1,134).United States President Joe Biden on Thursday warned of a “winter of severe illness and death” for those unvaccinated against COVID-19 as the new variant spreads.Warning that Omicron was spreading at an unprecedented rate, the World Health Organization on Tuesday said it had “probably” spread to most nations.Earlier this week, top WHO scientist Soumya Swaminathan said the spread could have been prevented. “It was in… the world’s hands to prevent this, if we had used the tools that we have equitably around the world. We had enough vaccines to vaccinate people around the world.”IMF chief Gita Gopinath on Wednesday, in an exclusive interview with NDTV, also made comments on “vaccine equity”. “Vaccine inequity is tragic. We are at the end of 2021 with high-income countries having vaccinated 70 per cent of their population and lower-income countries less than four per cent,” she said.Experts are still trying to understand if the new variant evades vaccine protection.(CNS)
