India witnessed a massive spike in Covid cases with 16,764 fresh infections and 220 Covid-related fatalities reported in the last 24 hours, Union Health ministry data showed.
The country’s Covid-19 tally rose to 3,48,38,804 and the number of active caseloads of the infection has gone up to 91,361 after witnessing a downward trend for a few weeks, the data said.
India’s Omicron crossed 1,000 on December 30, with Maharashtra reporting its highest single-day infection with the new strain.
According to the health ministry, there were 1,270 cases of Omicron detected so far from 23 states and Union Territories. Almost 374 of those patients have been discharged.
Leading the Omicron tally are Maharashtra and Delhi with 450 and 320 cases respectively.
On Thursday night, one case of Omicron was reported from Bihar.
Today, Kerala recorded “44 fresh confirmed cases of Omicron, taking total cases of the coronavirus variant to 107 in Kerala”, the ministry reported.
Among the 23 states and UTs that have reported the Omicron infection so far, Maharashtra tops the list with 450 cases of this variant. Of them, 125 patients have been discharged as per the health ministry data.
Delhi has the second-highest cases of Omicron infection at 320. However, 57 of them have been discharged from the hospital.
Among other states, Gujarat has so far reported 97 Omicron cases and Rajasthan has a total of 69 cases. In Telangana, 62 people have so far tested positive for Omicton while in Tamil Nadu the count stands at 46. Karnataka has logged 34 cases and Andhra Pradesh so far has 16 cases of this variant. Haryana and Odisha have 14 Omicron cases each while West Bengal has reported 11 cases so far.
However, the Omicron case count is in single digit for Madhya Pradesh at 9 and Uttarakhand at 4 cases while Chandigarh and Jammu & Kashmir have 3 cases each. Uttar Pradesh and Andaman and Nicobar Islands have 2 cases so far.
Meanwhile, Goa, Himachal Pradesh and Ladakh, Manipur and Punjab have one case each so far.