Omicron hits MP, HP, tally tops 500-mark

Omicron hits MP, HP, tally tops 500-mark

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

27.12.2021

India’s Omicron count crossed the 500-mark and stood at 504 on Sunday even as the highly infectious variant of coronavirus spread to two more states — Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh — taking the number of affected states and UTs to 17.

Madhya Pradesh reported nine cases, all of them foreign travelers. MP home minister Narottam Mishra confirmed on Sunday that Omicron cases were detected in the state, hours after TOI had published a report in its edition in the morning that a private lab at Indore had confirmed eight cases. Later in the day, a 23-year-old man who had returned from Dubai on December 17 also tested positive for Omicron.

“All nine Omicron cases are fully vaccinated, including one from the US who has taken a booster dose. Six have been discharged and the other three are either hospitalised or in home isolation,” Indore chief medical health officer Dr BS Saitya said. Himachal reported its first case — a 45-year-old woman who had arrived from Canada on December 3 – just a day before PM Modi’s scheduled public meeting in Mandi.

Kerala reported maximum daily cases on Sunday with 19 patients testing positive for the variant, taking the state’s total tally to 57, the third highest in the country after Maharashtra (110 cases) and Delhi (79 cases). Rajasthan and Gujarat have 49 cases each. As many as 16 of the fresh cases detected in Kerala on Sunday returned from abroad recently while three of them are patients’ contacts. Haryana reported seven new cases raising the state’s tally to 13.