The Omicron variant of COVID-19 is the dominant variant in the country and 'BA.2', the sub-variant of the strain, is more prevalent in India now, the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) director stated on Thursday, 27 January.
Meanwhile, the United Kingdom has classified the BA.2 variant as a 'variant under investigation,' IANS reported.
The central government also indicated that COVID-19 infections were showing early signs of plateauing in the country, NDTV reported.
Luv Aggarwal, Joint Secretary, Union Health Ministry, told news agency ANI, "Overall case positivity rate across the country was nearly 17.75% during the last week. There are over 50,000 COVID active cases in 11 states, 10,000-50,000 active cases in 14 states, and less than 10,000 active cases in 11 states."
"There're over 3 lakh active cases in Karnataka, Maharashtra & Kerala & over one lakh in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat & Tamil Nadu. We're in touch with the states regarding containment activities. As of Jan 26, 551 districts were reporting a case positivity rate of over 5%," the health ministry added.
Exponential Fall in Number of Deaths
The health ministry also indicated that during the peak of the second wave, on 7 May 2021, there were 4,14,188 new cases and 3,679 deaths. However, on 21 January 2022, there were only 3,47,254 new cases and 435 deaths.
Expounding on the drop in the number of deaths, the ministry stated that 75 percent of the eligible people were vaccinated this time around.
Over 90 percent of the patients are in home isolation with mild to moderate illness, and the number of cases needing oxygen and ICU beds is lower, the ministry added in a statement.
(With inputs from ANI.)
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