21 Cases Of New COVID Variant JN.1 Confirmed In India

New Delhi: A total of 21 cases of the new coronavirus variant JN.1 have been detected in India so far, NITI Aayog member (Health) VK Paul said on Wednesday.

Goa has reported 19 cases of the new variant, while one case each has been detected in Kerala and Maharashtra.

India has seen a significant rise in COVID-19 cases this month. From 115 on December 6, the number has gone up to 614 on December 20 – a four-fold rise in a period of a fortnight.

Union Health secretary Sudhansh Pant made a presentation which showed 92.8% of new cases are home isolation, indicating mild illness, with no increase in hospitalisation.

Those in hospitals are because of other medical conditions, and COVID is an incidental finding, the Health secretary said. He also informed that a rise in daily positivity rate — number of confirmed cases per 100 tests — has been observed in Kerala, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Karnataka.

In his presentation, Pant said cases in India are significantly less compared to the global numbers.

He said the JN.1 variant is under scrutiny, but not a cause of immediate concern. There has been no clustering of JN.1 cases in India so far. All cases were found to be mild, with the patients recovering sans any complications.

Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Wednesday reviewed the COVID-19 situation in India and preparedness of public health systems in view of rising cases in some states.

He said there was no need to panic, but urged everyone to be alert.