NEW DELHI: Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain on Monday said the latest genome sequencing report shows the Omicron variant of coronavirus has been found in 84 per cent of the samples tested.
He said though there is a spike in new cases, the situation is under control as not many people are developing severe diseases or require hospitalisation.
"As per genome sequencing reports of December 30-31 from three labs - at Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences, Lok Nayak Hospital and National Centre for Disease Control - 84 per cent samples were infected with Omicron.
Most of the cases are of Omicron," he said in the Delhi Assembly.
According to the health bulletin to be issued later on Monday, the capital has recorded around 4,000 new cases of coronavirus and the positivity rate has increased to 6.5 per cent, the minister said.
Jain said some experts have said the cases will peak in a week but it's conjecture.
India on Monday saw 175 new cases of the highly-transmissible Omicron Covid-19 variant in the last 24 hrs taking the country's tally to 1,700, with Maharashtra and Delhi continuing to be the worst-hit, said the Union Health Ministry.
Of the total, 639 people have been discharged.
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Among the 23 states and UTs that have reported cases of the new variant, Maharashtra tops the list of 510 cases, of which 193 patients have been discharged, according to data from the Ministry.
The capital city Delhi has the second-highest Omicron cases at 351. Fifty-seven of them have been discharged from the hospital.
Delhi is followed by Kerala with 156 Omicron cases, Gujarat (136), Tamil Nadu (121) and Rajasthan (120).
In Telangana, 67 people have tested positive for the variant, while the case tally in Karnataka rose to 64.
Haryana has logged 63 cases, Odisha 37, West Bengal 20 and Andhra Pradesh 17.
The states with single-digit Omicron cases are Madhya Pradesh (nine); Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand (eight each); Chandigarh and Jammu and Kashmir (three each); Andaman and Nicobar Islands (two); Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Ladakh, Manipur and Punjab (one each).