3 fresh Omicron cases in tricity

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 26

Tricity reported three new cases of the Omicron variant today, two from Chandigarh and one from Panchkula. With these fresh cases, the number of Omicron cases in the tricity has risen to four.

In the UT, two family members of the city’s first Omicron case, a 20-year-old international traveller from Italy who came to meet his relatives in the city, tested positive for the new variant.

One of them is an 80-year-old man who is a patient of hypertension. Though he is asymptomatic, he has been isolated in the hospital.

The second patient, a 45-year-old man, was discharged after his re-test result came out negative on December 24. A total of seven family members of the first Omicron patient of the city were tested for Covid and five of them were found positive, following which their samples were sent to Delhi for genome sequencing. According to health officials, the results of three samples that were sent for genome sequencing were still pending.

Panchkula’s first case

A 23-year-old woman from Kalka, who studies in the US and arrived in India on December 15 to meet her family, today became the first person in the district to test positive for the Omicron variant.

The fully vaccinated woman, who landed in Delhi, was tested on December 17 and her samples came out positive for coronavirus the next day. She was immediately shifted to Ojas Hospital while her samples were sent to Delhi for genome sequencing. According to the health officials, all five immediate family members of the woman, grandfather, grandmother, father, mother and sister (all fully vaccinated), were her only contacts. They all tested negative.

The woman stands discharged while her family members will be re-tested again, said the District Covid nodal officer, Dr Rajeev Narwal.