Omicron infects 8 more in Rajasthan, tally now reaches 17

JAIPUR: Eight more persons tested positive for the highly infectious and transmissible Omicron variant of Covid-19 in the state on Monday, bringing the overall tally to 17.
“Eight new cases of Omicron variant have been reported from the state. Three from Sikar’s Ajitgarh, four from Jaipur’s Adarsh Nagar and one student who arrived from Ukraine on December 6 have tested positive for the variant,” said Dr Ravi Prakash Sharma, additional director, rural health.A Kota resident and a medical student in Ukraine, who tested positive for Covid on arrival at the Jaipur airport on December 6, has tested positive for Omicron.
“First nine cases of Covid-19 were reported on December 5 when a family of four which arrived in Jaipur from South Africa tested positive for the variant and five of a family in Adarsh Nagar who came into contact with them also tested positive. Adarsh Nagar family has now nine Omicron cases - five reported on December 5 and four reported in December 13,” said a health department official.
Meanwhile the state reported 27 new Covid infections in Monday taking the overall tally to 9,55,103. Two persons also died in the last 24 hours taking the overall casualty count to 8,958. Since July 31, the state has reported four deaths, out of which two happened in the last 24 hours. The last time the state reported a fatality was on December 6 in Bikaner. Of the two casualties, Rajsamand reported its 170th Covid death, while Churu reported its 108th.
The health department asked its officials in all districts to strictly follow the five-fold strategy to ensure that Covid cases should not spread in the state. A video conferencing was held in which chief medical health officials and principal medical officers along with other officials attended the meet headed by health secretary Vaibhav Galriya.
Galriya said, “For preventing spread of Covid, directions have been issued to test-track-treatment and vaccinate and maintain Covid appropriate behaviour.”
Also, the health department has issued instructions to send samples of all Covid positive cases for genome sequencing so that any new variant can be detected early.
The health department is also encouraging people to get their vaccination done. Galriya said in the past few days, Covid vaccination has generated some pace. A health department official said all districts had been directed to conduct special drives to get more vaccinations done. Till December 13, 7.43 crore vaccine doses had been administered. On Monday, Hanumangarh reported eight cases, Jaipur (7), Bikaner (7), Udaipur (2), Sriganganagar (2), while one case was reported from Churu.