COVID-19 Omicron Variant Update: First Patient Recovers In Maharashtra

The first patient found positive with the Omicron variant of the coronavirus in Maharashtra has now recovered and has been discharged from hospital after being tested negative for COVID-19. However, the individual has been asked to stay in home isolation for another 7 days. The man is a 33-year old engineer hailing from Dombivli in Thane, who was found positive after returning from South Africa.

The Omicron variant has also been confirmed in Pakistan and Cuba. A provincial health official spoke to Reuters and said that the variant had been discovered in a person who had travelled abroad and was being treated in a private hospital in Pakistan. Similarly, the person found positive in Cuba had also travelled to Mozambique and returned on November 27^th.

In India’s Karnataka, there is a Covid cluser which is currently active amongst students of a school in Karnataka’s Chikkamagaluru district. However, the state government has said that its focus is on managing the cluster and issuing new guidelines for hostels rather than imposing restrictions.

Karnataka’s health minister K. Sudhakar also claimed that the state has the maximum number of people with at least one shot of COVID vaccines.

The Mumbai Airport, meanwhile, is still dealing with the increase costs of RT-PCR tests. The airport testing lab is in talks with its partners to mitigate the cost of these tests.  

Five foreign nationals had entered Goa including from Russia and Georgia, and are now suspected of carrying the Omicron variant. The state’s halth authorities say that four of them are asymptomatic whereas the fifth is recouping. Their samples have been sent to Pune for genome sequencing.