India reports 16,764 new Covid cases, Omicron variant spreading rapidly, reaches 1,270

India registered 16,764 new Covid-19 cases and 220 deaths in the past 24 hours, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on Friday.

With the addition of the new fatalities, the nationwide death toll has spiked to 4,81,080.

Meanwhile, with 309 new cases of highly transmissible Covid variant Omicron detected in the last 24 hours, India's Omicron tally on Friday rose to 1,270 cases. Of total, 374 have been discharged.

Among the 23 states and UTs that have reported the Omicron infection so far, Maharashtra tops the list with 450 cases of this variant. Of them, 125 patients have been discharged as per the health ministry data.

Delhi has the second highest cases of Omicron infection at 320. However, 57 of them have been discharged from the hospital. Delhi is followed by Kerala with 109 Omicron cases. The Union health ministry on Friday morning said that the Omicron infection has so far spread into 23 states and UTs.

Among other states, Gujarat has so far reported 97 Omicron cases and Rajasthan has a total of 69 cases. In Telangana, 62 people have so far tested positive for Omicton while in Tamil Nadu the count stands at 46. Karnataka has logged 34 cases and Andhra Pradesh so far has 16 cases of this variant. Haryana and Odisha have 14 Omicron cases each while West Bengal has reported 11 cases so far.

However, the Omicron case count is in single digit for Madhya Pradesh at 9 and Uttarakhand at 4 cases while Chandigarh and Jammu & Kashmir have 3 cases each. Uttar Pradesh and Andaman and Nicobar Islands have 2 cases so far. Meanwhile, Goa, Himachal Pradesh and Ladakh, Manipur and Punjab have one case each so far.

So far, a total 23 states have reported the new variant, the Ministry said. Also in the last 24 hours, 7,585 patients recovered which increased the cumulative tally to 3,42,66,363. Consequently, India's recovery rate stands at 98.36 per cent.

Covid caseload

The nation's active caseload is presently at 91,361 which constitute 0.26 per cent of the total Positive Cases. Meanwhile, a total of 12,50,837 tests were conducted across the country, raising the overall figure to 67.78 crore .

The weekly positivity rate at 0.89 per cent has remained less than 1 per cent for the last 47 days now.

The daily positivity rate stands at 1.34 per cent, which has also remained below 2 per cent for last 88 days and less than 3 per cent for 123 consecutive days now.

With the administration of 66,65,290 vaccine doses in the last 24 hours, India's Covid inoculation coverage reached 144.54 crore as of Friday morning.

(With inputs from IANS)