Following Maharashtra, Rajasthan reports suspected Omicron related death

Omicron has claimed two lives in Maharashtra and Rajasthan, which are suspected to be the first casualties due to the new variant in India. However, health authorities say both died of normal health issues and not Omicron.

Pune/Udaipur: Following a suspected death due to Omicron in Maharashtra, Rajasthan has also reported a likely case of Omicron related death.

In the first case, a 52-year-old patient from Pune who died on Tuesday (December 28), later tested positive for Omicron variant of Coronavirus on Thursday. While he could be the first casualty caused due to the Omicron variant in the country, the doctors attributed his death to a heart attack.

In their clarification, the authorities said that the patient was diabetic for the past 13 years and was also suffering from heart issues. The patient was a foreign returnee with a travel history to Nigeria who had also tested positive for Covid. His sample was therefore sent for genome sequencing to National Institute of Virology.

However, the man succumbed to his health issues before the test results arrived on Thursday. The state health authorities, therefore, allegedly refrained from classifying it as 'Omicron death'. A health expert has said that his death can be counted as a Covid-fatality since the man tested Covid positive before he died.

In the second case, a 73-year-old man from Udaipur in Rajasthan, who tested positive for Omicron on December 25, died on Friday morning. The man, according to initial reports, was from Savina area of the city and had been admitted at a local hospital since December 15.

According to the health officials, the elderly had pneumonia, hypertension and diabetes, and attributed the death to post-Covid issues.

Meanwhile, India on Friday reported 16,764 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, pushing the country's coronavirus tally to 34,838,804, exhibiting a surge on third consecutive day.

The total cases of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 cases has gone up to 1,270 with Maharashtra and Delhi reporting 450 and 320 cases respectively, according to the Union health ministry.

The health ministry informed that the active caseload in the country stands at 91,361 constituting 0.26 per cent of the total cases. With this, the country's Covid-19 tally has risen to 34,838,804 and with 220 deaths reported over the past 24 hours, the death toll has mounted to 4,81,080.

As many as 7,585 patients recovered in the last 24 hours taking the total number of recoveries to 3,42,66,363. The recovery rate in the country currently stands at 98.36 per cent.

The weekly positivity rate in the country is 0.89 percent, which remains lesser than 1 per cent for the last 47 days. The daily positivity rate is 1.34 per cent which remains lesser than 2 percent for the last 88 days. The country has conducted as many as 67.78 crore Covid-19 tests so far. India has administered around 144.54 crore vaccines so far under a nationwide vaccination drive.

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