Amid rising COVID-19 cases across India, Delhi on Wednesday reported its first case of COVID-19 sub-variant JN.1, officials were quoted as saying to PTI.
The national capital reported nine fresh infections today, taking the total active cases to 35, a health official said, adding that a 28-year-old man, who had comorbidities, died, with COVID-19 not being the primary reason.
“The man was not from Delhi and was referred to a private hospital recently. He had multiple comorbidities and the Covid finding was incidental. The sample of the man has been sent for genome sequencing and a report is awaited,” PTI quoted the official as saying.
Yesterday, the Delhi health minister said nearly 400 tests are being conducted every day and the positivity rate is around 1%. He reiterated that the new JN.1 sub-variant of the Omicron strain is not life-threatening.
“The new variants are not dangerous but people should not become lax and (they must) follow precautions. People should not panic and think that the virus is spreading and people are dying. But people should be cautious during this time of the festival season,” he added.
Meanwhile, India today recorded 529 fresh cases of COVID-19 in a single day. The total active infection count stood at 4,093, across the country, the health ministry said.
Maharashtra today reported 87 new COVID-19 cases, besides two deaths. The state recorded 46 cases between December 14 and 20, whereas between December 21 and 27, as many as 267 new cases came to light. The state has so far recorded 10 cases of the new JN.1 variant of Omicron — five in Thane city, two in Pune city and one each in Akola city and Pune and Sindhudurg districts.
The country recorded five new fatalities from the deadly disease in the past 24 hours—two each from Karnataka and Maharashtra and one from Gujarat, according to the ministry’s COVID update.
The number of daily cases had dropped to double-digits till December 5, but infections have again gone up after the emergence of a new variant JN.1 and cold weather conditions.
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Published: 27 Dec 2023, 07:30 PM IST