Telangana: Omicron scare rises after 43 students from Chalmeda medical college test COVID+

Amid the Omicron variant scare looming globally, 43 students of Telangana's Chalmeda Anand Rao Institute of Medical Sciences, Bommakal have tested positive for COVID-19. The District Medical Health Officer of Karimnagar brought to the fore that the sudden outbreak surfaced after medical students participated in intra-college events as part of annual day celebrations recently. The management immediately ordered the college to remain closed and holidays have been declared until further notice.

The DMHO confirmed the news and said to PTI that all staff and students have been directed to get themselves tested in order to further check the spread of COVID-19. Telangana on Sunday recorded 156 fresh COVID-19 cases taking the total number of those affected by the disease in the state to 6,76,943. The toll rose to 3,999 with one more person succumbing to the virus, a medical bulletin said.

COVID-19 situation in Telangana

The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) accounted for the most number of cases with 54, followed by Karimnagar 47 and Ranga Reddy 12. A total of 147 people recuperated from the disease, taking the cumulative number till date to 6,69,157. The number of active cases in the state stood at 3,787, the bulletin said.

It further said 25,693 samples were tested on Sunday, taking the cumulative number of specimens examined to date to 2.87 crores. The samples tested per million population was 7,72,814. The Case Fatality Rate in Telangana was 0.59 per cent and the recovery rate 98.85 per cent.

Since December 1, as many as 1,270 international passengers arriving from "at-risk" countries were screened at Telangana's international airport and 13 of them were found positive for COVID-19 and their samples were sent for genome sequencing in view of Omicron variant threat, health officials told PTI. 

Notably, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare stated that the country has reported 8,306 new COVID-19 cases and 8,834 recoveries in the last 24 hours. The active caseload currently stands at 98,416 which is the lowest in 552 days.