Nagpur: Mumbai mayor Kishore Pednekar on Monday assured that no case of the newly-discovered Omicron variant has been reported in the city. Pednekar alerted the authorities to prevent spread of the pandemic.
While speaking to ANI, Pednekar said, “There is not a single patient in Mumbai who has been infected with the Omicron virus. Around 100 people from South Africa have come to Mumbai and surrounding cities. One of them tested COVID-19 positive. His medical report is being examined. But, at present, there is no Omicron infected patient in Mumbai.”
Recently, in the wake of the new variant, Mumbai has made the RT-PCR test necessary for the travelers entering the city. She also added that citizens coming to Mumbai from abroad at the airport are being quarantined and given proper medical check-ups. The Mumbai mayor said that adequate oxygen stocks, beds, ICU beds are available in large quantities in all the hospitals in Mumbai.
However, the government on Sunday said that there is no case of the Omicron variant reported in India as of now and two cluster groups—one in Maharashtra and the other in Karnataka are currently under observation. A 24-year-old resident of Dombivli in Mumbai, who arrived from South Africa on November 24 has been tested positive on arrival. The health officials are yet to ascertain if he is infected with the Omicron variant or not.
The World Health Organization on Friday declared the recently-discovered strain of Covid-19, known as B.1.1.529 or the Omicron strain as a ‘variant of concern.’
The classification puts the new variant into the most-troubling category of the novel coronavirus variants aligned with Delta, Alpha, Beta and Gamma variants.
After a spike in cases in Botswana, South Africa and Hongkong, the central government has asked the states to conduct ‘rigorous screening and testing’ of all the international travelers who are entering the country. Several nations have rushed to ban flights to slow the spread of Omicron on Friday.
