Delta still major strain of COVID-19, says Maharashtra health official amid Omicron scare
A senior official of Maharashtra’s health department has said that amid the fear of omicron type corona virus, the delta strain of the virus is still responsible for the maximum number of infection cases in the state, as revealed by genome sequencing of patients. Is. Is. samples.
Dr Pradeep Vyas, Additional Chief Secretary, Health, in a letter to his colleagues on Wednesday said that out of over 4,200 samples analyzed, 68 per cent samples were found to have the delta variant, while the remaining 32 per cent samples were found. To be sick infected with the Omicron strain.
The Delta version wreaked havoc last year during the second wave of the pandemic. The Omicron strain, which was first detected in South Africa in November 2021, started spreading in India from the first week of December. As of Friday night, Maharashtra has reported 1,605 omicron cases, while its total COVID-19 infection count has risen to 71,24,278.
“Since November 1 last year, samples of 4,265 COVID-19 patients were sent for genome sequencing. The results of 4,201 cases have been released, indicating that the Omicron variant was detected in 1,367 or 32 per cent of the cases, while the delta variant was detected in the remaining 68 per cent of the cases,” Dr Vyas said in the letter.
It also said that out of 2,40,133 active coronavirus cases in Maharashtra till Wednesday (January 12), 90 per cent patients were in home isolation or COVID care centres.
“We have seen three weeks of the current increase in COVID-19 infections. As of January 12, there were 2,40,133 active COVID-19 cases, of which 90.9 per cent were either in home isolation or COVID-19. Was in the care center. Only 21,783 patients or 9.1 per cent of the total active cases were in hospital.
Of these hospitalized patients, 16,175 or 74.2 percent had mild symptoms and 5,608 or 2.3 percent of them required ICU or oxygen support. He said only 700 patients, which is about 0.29 per cent of the total active cases, were on ventilators.
The official also said that the current surge is mainly limited to cities and regions like Mumbai, Thane, Raigad, Palghar Pune and Nagpur, which have relatively better anti-coronavirus vaccination coverage.
He told his colleagues that these observations should be kept in mind while preparing to deal with the current surge.
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