Omicron: States told to bring back curbs

Omicron: States told to bring back curbs

Sushmi.Dey@timesgroup.com

New Delhi:22.12.2021

Amid initial signs of a rise in Omicron infections and concerns over its high transmissibility, the Centre on Tuesday asked states to activate war rooms and bring back curbs, including night curfews, strict restrictions on large gatherings, curtailing numbers in marriages and funerals, restricting attendance in offices and public transport.

District administrations have been asked to keep a close watch on numbers and proactively analyse trends and surges. Highlighting that Omicron variant is at least three times more transmissible than the Delta strain, the Centre underlined the need for prompt and focused decisions at the local level as cases can spread rapidly in the absence of timely identification and containment.

‘Hospitalisation, deaths can impact a nascent economic recovery’

This is considered necessary even though cases of Omicron have been seen to be mostly mild so far.

“Based on current scientific evidence, the VOC (Variant of Concern) Omicron is at least 3 times more transmissible than the Delta VOC. Besides, the Delta VOC is still present in different parts of the country. Hence, even greater foresight, data analysis, dynamic decision making and strict & prompt containment action is required at the local and district level. The decision making at the State/UT and district level must be very prompt and focussed,” health secretary Rajesh Bhushan said in a letter on Tuesday.

While the infection might prove to be mild, a large number of cases can increase hospitalisation and deaths and also impact a nascent economic recovery. Till Tuesday morning, 200 cases infected with Omicron variant of SARSCoV2 were detected through genome sequencing of Covid-19 positive samples from across 12 states and UTs. Of these 77 cases have recovered or migrated, health ministry said. The Centre has directed “all cluster samples must be sent to INSACOG Labs for genome sequencing without delay.”

The Centre is worried over the rising detection of Omicron cases even as the overall numbers continue to be under control. Officials raised concerns as the detected Omicron cases are only a factor of the size of samples and the real numbers are likely to be much higher, particularly because of the transmissibility.

Overall, a total of 5,326 new Covid-19 cases — which includes Delta and other variants — were recorded from across the country on Monday. The active caseload of Covid-19 stood at 79,097. Maharashtra and Delhi have recorded 54 cases of Omicron variant each, while Telangana registered 20 cases, Karnataka 19, Rajasthan 18, Kerala 15 and Gujarat 14 cases.