Zoom News : Dec 31, 2021, 10:58 AM
New Delhi: India's Omicron count crossed the 1,000-mark as the highly-mutated variant of the coronavirus continues to spread at an alarming rate across the country, according to the Union ministry of health and family welfare on Friday.The health ministry said there were 1,270 cases of Omicron detected so far from 23 states and Union territories, adding 374 people have been discharged. Maharashtra and Delhi are leading the Omicron tally and have reported 450 and 320 cases respectively. Bihar became the latest state to report a case of the new variant. Meanwhile, India's daily tally of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) also continued to spike for a third consecutive day after 16,764 cases were recorded in the last 24 hours, pushing the caseload to 34,838,804, according to the health ministry's update.More than 7,500 patients recovered and 220 succumbed to the viral disease, taking the cumulative count of recoveries and deaths to 34,266,363 and 481,080 respectively. Active cases of Covid-19 are up by nearly 9,000 and stand at 91,361, the health ministry also said.According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), 1,250,837 samples were tested for Covid-19 in the last 24 hours and the total number has climbed to 677,878,255.