Two Omicron cases in Gujarat, Maharashtra

New Delhi, December 4

India on Saturday reported two more Omicron positive cases — a 72-year-old man from Gujarat’s Jamnagar who had returned from Zimbabwe and a 33-year-old man from Kalyan-Dombivali area who returned to Mumbai on November 24 from South Africa.

Meanwhile, the Health Ministry sounded the alarm over a steep rise in new Covid cases in five states and the Union Territory of UT amid fears of Omicron spread.

Weekly rise of 726% cases in Kathua

• Health Ministry data shows in Kathua, new Covid cases surged by 726.53% in a week — from 49 cases between Nov 19 and 25 to 405 between Nov 26 and Dec 2
• Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan writes to J&K, Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Odisha and Mizoram

In a letter to J&K, Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Odisha and Mizoram, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan mentioned the November 27 advisory, wherein states were asked to undertake enhanced surveillance of international travellers, monitoring of hotspots, prompt contact tracing of positive individuals, sending all positive samples for genome sequencing to INSACOG labs, early identification of cases through adequate testing, review of health infrastructure preparedness and focus on community sensitisation.

He said J&K had reported 4,806 new cases in the past 30 days with the districts of Kathua, Jammu, Ganderbal and Baramulla showing a sharp increase in the previous week. The Health Ministry data shows in Kathua, new Covid cases surged by 726.53 per cent in a week, from 49 cases between November 19 and 25 to 405 in the week between November 26 to December 2; corresponding percentage rise was 53.81 per cent in Jammu from 223 to 343 cases; 25.33 per cent in Ganderbal from 103 to 126 cases and 21.84 per cent in Baramulla from 87 to 106 cases. The Centre also wrote to Kerala, which reported 1,71,521 new cases in the month ending December 3 (30 days), with a contribution of 55.87 per cent to India’s new cases from over the past month.

Thirteen out of 14 districts in Kerala are reporting high quantum of weekly new cases. Districts of concern in the week ending December 2 are Thiruvananthapuram (5,541 cases), Ernakulam, (4,976), Kozhikode (3,676), Thrissur (2,903) and Kottayam (2,478).

Four districts are showing high weekly positivity of more than 10 per cent — Thiruvananthapuram (11.61 per cent), Wayanad (11.25 per cent), Kozhikode (11 per cent) and Kottayam (10.81 per cent) and nine districts are reporting weekly positivity between 5 per cent and 10 per cent.

“Kerala has also reported a slight increase in weekly new deaths to 2,118 deaths (week ending December 3) from 1,890 deaths (week ending November 26),” said the ministry. Tamil Nadu has reported 2,31,764 new cases in month ending December 3 (30 days). Karnataka reported 8,073 new cases in month ending December 3. — TNS