India reports 1st Omicron death in Rajasthan; Omicron tally rises to 2,135 on Wednesday

Jan. 5: India on Wednesday confirmed its first death from the Omicron variant of coronavirus after a 73-year-old man from Rajasthan succumbed to the infection. The deceased Laxminarayan Nagar tested positive for Covid on December 15 and has been in hospital since then. The person is reported to have comorbidities, like diabetes, hypertension, among others.

His samples were sent for genome sequencing, meanwhile he was found Covid negative on December 21. The man was doubly vaccinated and had no significant contact and travel history. It was after his death that the genome sequencing results came in on December 25 and he was found to carry the Omicron variant. He died on December 31 at around 3:30 am. The Centre on Wednesday confirmed the death of a man in Rajasthan as the first casualty due to the Omicron variant of coronavirus.

Meanwhile, with 243 new cases of highly transmissible Covid variant Omicron detected in the last 24 hours, India’s Omicron tally on Wednesday rose to 2,135 cases. Of these, 828 people have recovered from the new strain so far.  Among the states and union territories (UTs) that have reported the Omicron infection so far, Maharashtra tops the list with 653 cases of this variant.  With 82 cases of Omicron variant detected in the last 24 hrs, Delhi’s tally has reached 464. Delhi is followed by Kerala with 185 Omicron cases. The Union health ministry on Wednesday morning said that the Omicron infection has so far spread into 24 states and UTs.