As Omicron-led third wave of Covid-19 has already strengthened its grip on Jammu and Kashmir, the Union Territory has recorded more infections in the first 11-days of January than in the whole month of December 2021.
In December 2021, 4,315 positive Covid-19 cases were reported in J&K. As of January 11, 2022 evening, the number stands at 5,339. On Tuesday 1,148 persons tested positive for Covid-19 in the UT while the number was 199 a week before on January 4.
According to health authorities, the fast pace of case rise is Omicron-led in J&K. Additional Chief Secretary (ACS) Health and Medical Education, Vivek Bhardwaj said that Omicron has been confirmed in both Kashmir and Jammu divisions.
“Even if we did not have lab confirmation of Omicron, the speed at which the cases are increasing makes it evident that Omicron is responsible for the wave,” he said and called the current wave in J&K, “Omicron wave.”
With ‘Omicron wave’ sweeping the UT, administration is on an alert mode with 6,000-bedded quarantine facilities being made operational across the Valley. Till Tuesday evening, 15 Omicron cases were detected in J&K out of which ten were reported yesterday only.
“The highest number of daily cases in the second wave of Covid in Kashmir was 3,500. Now it may be five times more than that, because of Omicron’s super-spreading nature and can stay until the last week of February,” said Dr Rouf Hassan Rather, in charge of data analysis at Covid Command and Control Centre in Kashmir.
Global health experts have opined that Omicron can be the beginning of the end to the pandemic that began in Wuhan in China two years ago.
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