8 more Omicron cases in Maharashtra, 6 in Pune alone; state’s tally reaches 40

Maharashtra reported eight more cases of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, which have now taken the state’s tally of such infections to 40, the health department said on Friday.

Of the eight new Omicron cases, six have been reported from Pune and Mumbai and Kalyan Dombivli saw one case each.

“As per the report given by National Institute of Virology today, 8 more patients were found to be infected with Omicron in the state. Out of these, 6 patients are from Pune, 1 patient is from Mumbai and 1 patient is from Kalyan Dombival,” the Maharashtra health department said.

However, 25 of these patients have been discharged after they tested negative for the coronavirus disease, the health department also said.

The health department noted all the eight patients, who tested positive for the Omicron variant, are vaccinated and assured that people who came in close contact with them were being traced. Only two patients have been hospitalised after testing positive while the rest have been confined to home isolation.

It also said that seven of the eight patients were asymptomatic while one of them exhibited mild symptoms. All the patients were men belonging to the 29 to 45 age group, it added.

In Pune, four patients travelled to Dubai, the person who was found infected in Mumbai returned from the United States and the patient in Kalyan Dombivli came back from Nigeria.

Meanwhile, the state also reported 902 new infections of Covid-19 in the last 24 hours. As many as 12 people also lost their lives, taking the state’s death toll to 141,329, according to the latest data.

To this, the capital city of Mumbai added 289 new Covid-19 cases and one fatality. Further, 680 people recovered from the disease, taking the overall recoveries to 6,495,929.

The Union ministry of health and family welfare in its regular press briefing insisted people must follow Covid appropriate behaviour such as wearing face masks and maintaining social distancing.

Balram Bhargava, the director general of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), also stressed the need for a “low intensity” celebration of Christmas and New Year and warned against non-essential travel.