COVID-19 surge in India: Amid the rising cases of COVID-19 across the country, the Uttar Pradesh government made Covid testing mandatory for all international passengers on arrival in the state. The state government also directed the authorities concerned to perform genome sequencing on the samples that have tested positive for coronavirus.
"Private and government labs should send all positive Covid samples to the microbiology department at King George's Medical University (KGMU) for whole genome sequencing," said the directive.
Use of masks mandatory at crowded places
As per an order issued by the state government, the use of masks is mandatory for all people at crowded places.
The guideline issued by the state secretary was sent to all divisional commissioners, district magistrates, chief medical officers, and other health officials across the state. The state government directive was issued is in line with the guidelines issued by the Centre.
The state government order further states that the integrated Covid command centres should be activated, surveillance teams should be made active, rapid response teams should be sensitised, and 'nigrani samiti' should be formed at the district-level.
Also, rapid response teams should visit the residence of Covid patients within 24-hours of the sample testing positive. At hospitals across the state, doctors and paramedical staff should be sensitised. Besides, the availability of equipment, medicine, and manpower should also be checked at hospitals.
COVID cases in Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh on Saturday reported 188 new cases in the past 24 hours. The active case tally for Covid-19 infection in Uttar Pradesh is at 1025. Of the new cases, 52 were reported in Gautam Budh Nagar while 27 were recorded in its neighbouring Ghaziabad district. State capital Lucknow saw 26 new cases while 10 new cases were confirmed in Varanasi.
Since the outbreak, Uttar Pradesh has recorded 21.29 lakh Covid cases and 23,651 related deaths.
The Haryana government also made wearing face masks mandatory in public places. "It is intimated that in a meeting held under the chairmanship of Hon'ble Health Minister, Haryana on 03.04.2023, it has been observed that there is a significant upsurge in the number of COVID cases with an increased positivity rate of COVID-19 infection in the State of Haryana over past few weeks," the Haryana Health Department said.
The statement further added that this was decided as a precautionary measure against another possible outbreak of COVID-19. "It has decided that wearing of face mask by the general public at all the public places, where there is a gathering of more than 100 people, government offices, malls, etc. is mandatory", reads the statement.
Omicron variant XBB.1.16 behind surge
As per the new study shows XBB.1.16 Omicron variant is behind the COVID-19 surge in India and will also spread worldwide in the near future, has an effective reproductive number (Re) 1.27 and 1.17-fold higher respectively than XBB.1 and XBB.1.5, suggesting that XBB.1.16 will spread worldwide in the near future.
"At the end of March 2023, XBB.1.16, a SARS-CoV-2 omicron XBB subvariant, emerged and was detected in various countries. Compared to XBB.1.5, XBB.1.16 has two substitutions in the S protein: E180V is in the N-terminal domain, and T478K in the receptor-binding domain (RBD). We first show that XBB.1.16 had an effective reproductive number (Re) that was 1.27- and 1.17-fold higher than the parental XBB.1 and XBB.1.5, respectively, suggesting that XBB.1.16 will spread worldwide in the near future," the study stated.
COVID cases in India
India has logged 6,155 fresh covid-19 infections in the last 24 hours. The active tally has witnessed a spike and increased to 31,194. According to Union Health Ministry data India's total covid-19 cases stands at 4.47 crore (4,47,51,259).
The death toll climbed to 5,30,954 with 11 deaths, including two reconciled by Kerala, the data updated at 8 am stated. At 31,194, the active cases comprise 0.07 per cent of the total infections. The national covid-19 recovery rate stands at 98.74 per cent, according to the health ministry website.
(With agencies input)
