Corona Virus which is commonly known as COVID-19 is an infectious disease that causes illness in the respiratory system in humans. The term Covid 19 is sort of an acronym, derived from “Novel Corona Virus Disease 2019”. Corona Virus has affected our day to day life. This pandemic has affected millions of people, who are either sick or are being killed due to the spread of this disease. As a matter of fact, different variants of this virus keep on appearing, the latest one being Omicron which is currently dominating the entire world. Several European countries have reported record high COVID-19 cases, as the Omicron coronavirus variant continues to surge across the continent. France reported a record high of 179,807 new confirmed coronavirus cases in a 24-hour period on Tuesday (28th December 2021), by far the highest daily number since the start of the pandemic. The previous record of 104,611 was set on Saturday. Britain reported a record 129,471 new cases of COVID-19 in the last 24 hours on Tuesday, excluding Northern Ireland and Scotland. The previous record high of daily infections was 122,186 on December 24. Portugal also reported record-high daily coronavirus cases on Tuesday, despite having one of the world’s highest vaccination rates, as did Cyprus, Italy, and Greece. Not only Europe, but the US has also reported a lot of these new variant cases. The cases in India have also started to increase steadily with Maharashtra being the state to have the highest number of Omicron cases (450) followed by the capital Delhi (320). India now has more than 1000 Omicron variant cases and this increase has occurred in just a span of 10 to 12 days. The tally of coronavirus variant Omicron has reached 1270 today up from 961 on Thursday in India showing a rise of more than 32%. The variant of concern that was first detected in South Africa has now spread to 23 states in the country. However, despite all this a positive thing is that the hospitalisation rate is quite low which is great news. As doctors are trying their best to find a cure for this, we should also be more cautious than before and take necessary precautions as prescribed by WHO because as we all know precaution is always better than cure. So it seems that the pandemic is still far from over and who knows what other variants we might see in the near future so it is best to stay cautious for now while hoping and praying for the best.
- Chayan