The Health Ministry on January 5 confirmed India’s first death linked to the highly transmissible variant of the coronavirus Omicron in the country.
Joint secretary, Health Ministry, Lav Aggarwal said on January 5 that one death of an elderly with comorbidities, including diabetes, has been reported from Rajasthan and that this is “technically” Omicron-related death.
Meanwhile, India has reported a 6.3 times increase in the number of new Covid cases in the last 8 days, said the Health Ministry on Wednesday stating that the spread is a matter of concern. It added that case positivity has risen from 0.79 % on December 29 to 5.03% on January 5.
Also 65.9% of the adult population has been fully vaccinated so far.
Booster dose
At the weekly Health Ministry press conference ICMR head Dr. Balram Bhargava said that Omicron is now the predominant circulating strain in cities and all mass gathering should be avoided.
Speaking about the booster or precautionary dose the Ministry said that persons will receive the same vaccine as the previous two doses.