Omicron Variant Enters India, Immediately 2 Cases Appear

JAKARTA - The Omicron variant is really contagious. Now the new variant of the corona virus has even arrived in India.

India has detected the first two cases of the Omicron coronavirus variant. Both are in the southern state of Karnataka, a health ministry official said Thursday, December 2.

"All the primary contacts and secondary contacts of the two cases have been traced and are being tested," the health ministry's joint secretary, Lav Agarwal, told a news briefing.

Both patients showed mild symptoms, officials said.

India's priority is to fully vaccinate 944 million Indian adults before giving booster injections. About 84 percent had received the first dose and about 49 percent per second.

India was due to restart international flights on December 15, but on Wednesday scrapped those plans and said a resumption date would be announced in due course.

After battling a record spike in infections and deaths in April and May, coronavirus cases have fallen substantially in India.

The country reported 9,765 new cases on Thursday, bringing the total to 34.61 million. Only the United States reported more.

The Omicron COVID-19 mutation, which was first detected in South Africa, has reportedly spread to various countries around the world. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that cases of Omicron have been detected in 23 countries. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus predicts the Omicron COVID-19 case will increase.

"At least 23 countries from five of the WHO's six regions have now reported cases of omicron and we expect that number to continue to grow," Ghebreyesus said as quoted by CNBC International.

“WHO takes these developments very seriously and so does every country. But that shouldn't surprise us. This is what viruses do. And that's what this virus will continue to do, as long as we allow it to continue to spread."

Recently, the first case of omicron in the United States has appeared in California. The information was confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday. A person who has been vaccinated and returned from South Africa to San Francisco on November 22 has tested positive on November 29. This was conveyed by the chief medical adviser at the White House, Dr. Anthony Fauci.

WHO states that COVID-19 omicron attacks protective antibodies and has a higher spread rate. However, Ghebreyesus explained that his party was still studying the effects of the transmission of the new variant, the severity of the disease, the effectiveness of tests, therapies and vaccines.