Coronavirus cases in India: Delhi, Mumbai, Gujarat reporting a surge in cases amid Omicron variant emergence

COVID-19 surge in cases: The US and a major part of Europe are witnessing a record number of new coronavirus cases as the world is entering the third year of the pandemic. Amid this, even India has started to show what seem to be signs of a surge in the making. On Tuesday, India recorded over 9,000 new infections, which is the highest since December 8. For about a week, Delhi, Gujarat as well as Maharashtra have been recording an increase in the number of daily COVID-19 cases. However, since these increased numbers were relatively small, and were being offset by the decline in the cases in Kerala, the national figure had not been reflecting this upward surge in coronavirus cases, according to a report in IE.

This now seems to be changing though as the seven-day average of daily case counts in India has moved up and crossed the 7,000-mark, the report added. Delhi and Mumbai have reported the sharpest turnaround, likely due to the fact that these two cities witness the largest number of incoming international passengers. After a gap of eight months, Delhi is now again in the list of top five states in terms of most COVID-19 cases, having reported 923 cases on Wednesday – almost double of what was reported on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the rise is even bigger in Mumbai, where 2,510 cases were reported on Wednesday. This was more than the number of daily cases that the entire southern state of Kerala reported, even as Kerala has been reporting the highest tally of cases for a good half a year now.

According to the report, the Omicron variant is almost certainly responsible for this fresh surge in the number of cases, despite the fact that in India, the confirmed cases due to the variant continue to be below 1,000. This is based on the fact that worldwide, it is this variant that is causing the cases to increase. The number of confirmed cases of the Omicron variant could be low due to the fact that the detection of any variant needs genome sequencing, which takes time. Apart from that, even for genome sequencing, only a small number of positive cases are sent, which is why it is entirely possible that the number of Omicron cases in the country is higher than the confirmed figure.

Meanwhile, even West Bengal has started to report an increase in the number of cases, having recorded over 1,000 cases on Wednesday, a first since July 4.