Cases May Explode Once Omicron Enters Community Transmission Stage In Odisha: Public Health Director

Bhubaneswar: There has been a rise in Omicron cases and the highly contagious variant of COVID-19 will soon be in the community transmission stage in Odisha, Public Health Director Niranjan Mishra said on Monday.

“As the transmission rate of Omicron is high, cases might explode any moment in the state,” he said.

Referring to the previous analysis by the Institute of Life Sciences, he said Omicron seems to be fast replacing the Delta variant of COVID-19 in Odisha with around 60 per cent of local samples collected randomly from 10 districts testing positive for this highly mutated and more transmissible SARS-CoV2.

Notably, this analysis was made from 274 samples collected from Cuttack, Balasore, Bhadrak, Ganjam, Khurda, Jharsuguda, Mayurbhanj, Nayagrah, Jajpur and Sundargarh between January 9 and January 16.

The senior health official said that 80 to 90 per cent of cases in metros have Omicron strain. “We have to wait for some time to get the data about the prevalence of the strain in our state,” he said.

The Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) in its Sunday bulletin had said that the Omicron variant is now in the community transmission stage in the country.

“Community spread means the number of Omicron cases are rising exponentially across the country. If multiple cases are detected from one place with positive persons having no international travel history or contact with foreign travellers, it is termed as ‘community transmission’,” he elaborated.

Notably, the Omicron tally had touched 347 in Odisha. The variant is known to have more transmissibility without leading to serious problems.

Odisha, however, has been witnessing a dip in new cases for the last few days. The fresh infections dropped below 8000on Monday as 7291 tested positive for the virus in the last 24 hours.

Also Read: Odisha’s Daily COVID Caseload Drops Below 8K, So Also Testing By 17%