NEW DELHI: India’s daily COVID-19 cases reached 117,100 on Friday, a five-fold increase in a week and on course to overtake its previous infection peak as the fast-spreading Omicron version of the delta in cities. Huh.
Government officials have said privately that they are operating under the assumption that daily infections will exceed the record 414,000 set in May, noting what has happened in countries such as the United States where daily cases are more recent. Recently exceeded 1 million.
“We will obviously soon exceed our record and reach a new peak by early February,” MD Gupte, former director of the state-run National Institute of Epidemiology and a vaccination adviser to the government, told Reuters.
“Given the size of our population, we will be reporting more daily cases than in the US but what we have seen is that these cases are much milder, therefore requiring hospitalization and oxygen and that Not everything is growing.”
He added that vaccination along with the high rate of infection in India during the last big wave in April and May would mean a reduction in the severity of the disease for people infected with the Omicron type.
Nearly 70 percent of Indians had been exposed to the coronavirus by the middle of last year, while an almost equal proportion of adults have been fully vaccinated by this week.
Health officials in the capital, New Delhi and the state of Maharashtra, home to the city of Mumbai, which together account for the bulk of the new cases, have said that hospitals and testing infrastructure are yet to come under pressure as many people quickly are doing fine. At home.
Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope told reporters that in Mumbai, nearly a quarter of all tests are positive, but less than a fifth of those who contracted the virus required hospitalisation.
The city recorded 20,181 new infections on Thursday, significantly higher than last year’s previous high of over 11,000.
“Around 80 percent of the hospital beds are still vacant,” he said. “The demand for oxygen is not increasing in proportion to the increasing cases. There is no plan to impose a lockdown at the moment. We can extend the ban if necessary.”
The state has closed schools and colleges and limited people’s permission to theatres, weddings and other gatherings.
Delhi, where there has been a more than five-fold increase in daily cases in a week, imposed a 55-hour lockdown from Friday night to Monday morning.
Authorities have also imposed a night curfew on weekdays, closed schools, and ordered most shops to open only on alternate days when there is no curfew.
India’s COVID-19 deaths rose by 302 on Friday, taking the total to 483,178. Total infections stand at 35.23 million, less than the US’s nearly 58 million.
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