The total number of Omicrons in India now stands at 1,270

Key sentence:

• India’s Omicron count has surpassed 1,000 as the highly mutated coronavirus variant continues to spread at an alarming rate.
• Maharashtra and Delhi are the states with the most Omicron cases, with 450 and 320 cases reported, respectively.

As per the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Friday, India’s Omicron count has surpassed 1,000 as the highly mutated variant of the coronavirus continues to spread at an alarming rate across the country.

According to the health ministry, 1,270 cases of Omicron have been identified so far in 23 states and union territories, with 374 of those patients having been discharged.

Maharashtra and Delhi are the states with the most Omicron cases, with 450 and 320 cases reported, respectively. Bihar became the latest state to report a case of the new variant on Thursday night.

Meanwhile, according to the health ministry’s update, India’s daily tally of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) continued to rise for the third day in a row, with 16,764 cases reported in the last 24 hours, bringing the total caseload to 34,838,804.

More than 7,500 patients recovered from the virus, while 220 died from it, bringing the total number of recoveries and deaths to 34,266,363 and 481,080, respectively. According to the health ministry, the number of active Covid-19 cases has increased by nearly 9,000 to 91,361.

In the last 24 hours, 1,250,837 samples were tested for Covid-19, bringing the total number of samples tested to 677,878,255, according to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

With 6,665,290 doses administered in the last 24 hours, the country’s vaccination coverage has surpassed 1.44 billion. On Thursday, the health ministry reported that the first dose had been administered to 90% of the adult population.

On Friday, the ministry said that the Centre’s free-of-cost channel and direct state procurement category had provided more than 1.5 billion vaccine doses to states and union territories (UTs) so far.

It also stated that nearly 170 million balance and unused vaccine doses are still available for distribution by the states and UTs.