Maharashtra on December 17 reported eight new cases of the new strain Omicron, as the state's tally reached 40. Out of these new cases, six have been found positive in Pune, one each in Mumbai and Kalyan Dombivali.
“As per the report given by National Institute of Virology today, eight more patients were found to be infected with Omicron in the state,” the Maharashtra Health Department has said.
So far, a total of 40 patients have been infected with the Omicron virus, it added.
Maharashtra on Thursday reported 877 new coronavirus positive cases, and 19 fatalities, which took its infection tally to 66,46,938 and death toll to 1,41,317, the state health department said.
On Wednesday, the state had reported 925 COVID-19 cases and 10 fatalities. A total of 632 patients were discharged during the day, taking the overall recovery count to 64,95,249.
Maharashtra's COVID-19 recovery rate is 97.72 percent, while the fatality rate stands at 2.12 percent.
The World Health Organization (WHO), which had classified Omicron as a 'variant of concern', recently said that it is spreading at a rate not seen with any previous strain.
A new variant of COVID-19 was first reported to the World Health Organisation (WHO) from South Africa on November 25. As per the WHO, the first known confirmed B.1.1.529 infection was from a specimen collected on November 9 this year.
On November 26, the WHO named the new COVID-19 variant B.1.1.529, which has been detected in South Africa, as 'Omicron'. The WHO has classified Omicron as a 'variant of concern'.
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