The new variant of coronavirus named Omicron spotted in South Africa is making the people of the globe sleepless. The initial reports say that the variant of coronavirus is extremely dangerous and is highly transmissible. Ten cases of the variant are spotted in India and the government is alert. All the passengers coming from South Africa, Botswana and Hong Kong are thoroughly screened. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired meeting with the top government officials to review the situation of coronavirus in the country. PK Mishra, Principal Secretary to PM along with Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba, Rajesh Bhushan, the Health Secretary and VK Paul, NITI Aauog member are the attended officials.

New Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal urged the Prime Minister to impose travel restrictions on the affected countries due to the new variant that is traced in South Africa. The countries of South Africa, Brazil, Bangladesh, Botswana, Mauritius, New Zealand, China, Zimbabwe, Hong Kong and Israel alog with some of the European countries have the variant present. All the measures should be followed by the travelers who are entering India from the above countries. Due to the Omicron variant, USA imposed a ban on eight countries of Africa. The active cases present in India are said to be 1,07,109 and the recovery rate is 98.34 percent. India reported 8318 new cases of coronavirus and 10,967 recoveries. 465 people passed away in the last 24 hours in India.

By Siva Kumar