Desk, 04-Jan; India reported 58,097 fresh COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, 55 per cent higher than yesterday’s 37,379 cases. This is twice the number seen only four days ago. The country has 2,135 cases of the Omicron variant – the most in Maharashtra with 653 cases, followed by Delhi with 464 cases.The weekly positivity rate is 2.60 per cent; daily positivity rate is 4.18 per cent. Positivity rate is the percentage of all Covid tests that are actually positive. It will be high if the number of positive tests is high, or if the number of total tests is low.Those in the age group 15-18 are being inoculated now. Over 147 crore vaccine doses have been administered in India, making a significant milestone in the fight against COVID-19.The recovery rate is currently at 98.01 per cent. At least 15,389 people have recovered in the last 24 hours. The total number of people who have recovered is 3,43,21,803.Active cases account for less than 1 per cent of total cases, currently at 0.61 per cent. The active caseload stands at 2,14,004.Some 534 people have died of Covid during the period for which data for the latest Health Ministry figures was collected. This includes 432 deaths in Kerala in the last few months, added based on pending appeals after the last Supreme Court guidelines.Several states have announced restrictions like night curfew as Covid cases continue to rise.Soaring Omicron cases around the world could increase the risk of a newer, more dangerous variant emerging, the World Health Organisation, or WHO, said yesterday.While the variant is spreading like wildfire around the world, it appears to be far less severe than initially feared and has raised hopes that the pandemic could be overcome and life return to more normality, the WHO has said.But WHO senior emergencies officer Catherine Smallwood sounded an ominous note of caution, telling news agency AFP that the soaring infection rates could have the opposite effect.”The more Omicron spreads, the more it transmits and the more it replicates, the more likely it is to throw out a new variant. Now, Omicron is lethal, it can cause death… maybe a little bit less than Delta, but who’s to say what the next variant might throw out,” Ms Smallwood said.(CNS)
