Bhubaneswar: Making a big jump in Omicron tally, Odisha has reported 23 new cases of the latest variant of the coronavirus in a single day on Sunday. The total number of Omicron cases in the state reached 37, officials said.
Out of the 23 new Omicron cases, 19 are male and 4 female and are in the age group of 8 to 83 years, said director of health services, Bijay Mohapatra.
Highest 7 cases have been reported from Keonjhar district, followed by Khordha district with 4 cases, 3 each from Puri & Sambalpur, 2 each from Boudh & Angul and one each case reported from Jagatsinghpur and Balasore districts, he informed.
All Omicron infected persons have either mild symptoms or asymptomatic and their health condition is stable, Mohapatra said, adding, a detailed report on contact tracing of the new infected persons is awaited.
Asked about travel history of the new infected persons, the director replied, while 50 per cent cases are foreign returnees, remaining 50 per cent are local contact cases.
“Our district level teams are collecting data of the local contact cases to ascertain whether they had travelled to any Omicron infected state or they had come in contact with any foreign returnees,” he further said.
Commenting on such a huge surge in the Omicron cases, Mohapatra said Covid-19 cases are rising in Odisha as well as other states like Delhi, Maharashtra and West Bengal. And, Omicron is a variant of coronavirus. So, it is also detected, he added.
On December 1, for the first time, Odisha had reported two Omicron cases among foreign returnees.
(IANS)
