Union Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba is scheduled to hold a review meeting on COVID-19 tomorrow at 2:30 pm.
Secretary (DBT), Member-Health of NITI Aayog, Secretary of the Health Ministry, Secretary (Pharma) are likely to attend the meeting.Earlier in the day, Union Health Ministry’s Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal briefed the media on COVID-19 and said India has reported 25 cases of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 but none of the patients have reported severe symptoms.The Joint Secretary also added that the symptoms in all detected cases are “mild” and account for 0.04 per cent of the total variants detected.During the briefing, Dr VK Paul, Member-Health of NITI Aayog, on Friday expressed concern over the decline in the use of face masks in the country and said that the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned against it as the global scene of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 is disturbing.Paul also said that India needs to remember that both the COVID-19 vaccine and face masks are important.
Meanwhile, India reported 8,503 fresh COVID-19 infections in the last 24 hours, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare informed on Friday.Of these fresh infections, Kerala reported 4,169 COVID-19 cases on Thursday.The total tally of COVID-19 cases in the country rose to 3,46,74,744 with 94,943 active cases. The active caseload accounts for less than one per cent of the total cases and is currently at 0.27 per cent.A daily positivity rate of 0.66 per cent was observed that is less than two per cent for the last 67 days. Further, a weekly positivity rate of 0.72 per cent has been reported that is less than one per cent for the last 26 days.
The country added 7,678 new recoveries from the infection in the last 24 hours thereby increasing the total recoveries to 3,41,05,066. The recovery rate is currently at 98.36 per cent.However, the country reported 624 new fatalities thereby mounting the death tally to 4,74,735
