Chandigarh: Ten of 75 covid-19 samples sent from the city for the order of intact genomes to IMTech tested positive for Omicron on Monday.
Worrying, except one, patients found with new variants do not include international returns from high-risk countries or their contacts.
One positive case has a history of arrivals from low-risk countries, Australia.
Samples were sent by the UT health department randomly from those collected from hospitals and house isolation after every 15 days a month.
The source said these two samples that were positive for Omicron came from PGI.
“This sample was sent in 4.
January but because the level of prospective since then has increased exponentially, the variant will be more in the next sample because the R0 is more than one,” said a public health expert.
“Because there is no history of travel, it is known that the variant of the concern has spread in the community.
We have the dominant Delta variant here until December.
But now, new variants are widespread,” other public health experts said.
Doctors say that unlike Delta variants, Omicron causes minor infections, but can be risky for the elderly with ko-morbidity or immunocompromised patients.
“This causes upper respiratory infections, but the incubation period within three days.
When the transmission is faster, the cloth mask does not protect in this variant,” said a doctor in PGI.
The first case of Omicron City was detected on December 11 last year, a 20 year old man.