Chennai: Till Wednesday, Tamil Nadu had reported just 1 Omicron case.
Overnight, that number has gone up to 34 as samples of 33 persons, including international travellers and their contacts, have been found to be positive for the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2. Samples were sent to Pune’s National Institute of Virology for genome sequencing.
Tamil Nadu now has most number of cases after Maharashtra and Delhi.
State Health minister M Subramanian said on Thursday that all 34 persons have been brought under a four-tier safety circle and all district collectors advised to tighten overall surveillance including in super-spreading areas.
But for two children, remaining patients are fully vaccinated, The Hindu reported.
Results of 23 samples are awaited, the minister added.
State Health secretary J Radhakrishnan informed that 45 persons who returned from 21 countries had tested positive on arrival on Day 1.
“This included travellers from nine at-risk and 12 non-risk countries. On the eighth day, when we tested again, 48 persons tested positive for COVID-19. We traced a total of 4,835 contacts of which 21 persons were found to be positive for the infection. A total of 114 persons tested positive for COVID-19 of which 23 recovered,” he explained.
