Desk,28-Jan; The Omicron variant of Covid-19 has been detected in 79 per cent of the samples sequenced in the national capital from January 1 till January 23.Delhi reported its first case of the fast-spreading variant on December 5 last year. The patient was a 37-year-old man who arrived here from Tanzania and was fully vaccinated against the coronavirus disease.Since then, Omicron has been the dominant variant behind the spike in daily infections in Delhi and elsewhere.According to government data, of the 863 samples sequenced between December 25 and December 31, 2021, around 433 samples carried Omicron, while 293 had the Delta variant that was responsible for the second Covid-19 wave of the pandemic in April last year that had wreaked havoc across the country, including Delhi.A report said, in the first week of January this year, 65 per cent of all Covid-19 infections had the Omicron variant. The percentage further surged to 81 in the samples sequenced the following week.The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)-led Delhi government introduced a slew of restrictions to curb the spread of Covid-19 fuelled by Omicron. These included weekend and night curfew, the opening of shops on an odd-even basis, closure of cinema halls, restaurants among others.However, amid a steady decline in daily cases, the government has now relaxed some of the above restrictions. The weekend curfew has been scrapped, shops can remain open on all days of the week between 10am to 8pm, restaurants and bars can function at 50 per cent of their seating capacity.Till now, Delhi has reported 18,15,288 cases, 17,56,369 recoveries, 33,175 active cases and 25,744 deaths. On Thursday, the national capital saw another low of 4,291 cases, while 34 more patients died and 9,397 recuperated. The case positivity rate has declined to 9.56 per cent.(CNS)
