Covid-19 Omicron Variant January 10 Highlights: BJP president JP Nadda tests Covid positive, Over 9 lakh ‘precaution doses’ administered on first day

Uttar Pradesh reported 8,334 fresh COVID-19 cases on Monday, raising the tally to 17,45,861, while four more deaths pushed the toll to 22,932, an official statement said. One death each was reported from Meerut, Allahabad, Bulandshahr and Sonbhadra, it said. In the past 24 hours, 335 more COVID-19 patients recovered from the disease, taking the total number of the recoveries to 16,88,983, the statement said. The number of active COVID-19 cases in the state is 33,946, it said. (PTI)

Chile is implementing a fourth vaccination dose for some citizens as the number of daily coronavirus infections rises. President Sebastián Piñera was present on Monday when two adults with immunosuppression problems received a fourth vaccination for COVID-19 at a Santiago hospital. Chile is applying a fourth dose early because the current daily infection rate of 4,000 coronavirus cases could rise to 10,000 or more, Piñera said. Vaccination with a fourth dose for the immuno-suppressed will end on Feb. 7. Then the programme will turn to people over 55 years old who had a third dose at least six months ago. Chile, which has 19 million people, had planned to start with the fourth dose in February. The sharp increase in infections in neighbouring Argentina, Bolivia and Peru contributed to its decision to advance the process. Israel approved a fourth vaccine dose for people most vulnerable to COVID-19, an official said on Dec. 30, becoming one of the first countries to do so as it braced for a wave of infections fuelled by the omicron variant. (AP)

Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma on Monday said the state government has not yet decided to impose lockdown but if the spread of coronavirus goes beyond a certain point then it may be forced to take a call. That is why the government is taking all precautionary measures and requesting people to be careful, the chief minister told reporters here after a meeting. “No decision yet and in all likelihood, we are not going ahead with imposing lockdown as we want to ensure that livelihood of people is not affected,” Sangma said. Pointing out that the government's focus will be on hospitalisation rate and the people who are in the ICU and those who require beds, the chief minister said “As of now, things are very much under control and enough beds are available”. Given the outbreak of the Omicron variant of coronavirus, Sangma said, the hospitalisation rate in the current wave is not as high compared to what it was in the last wave. Asserting that the government is keeping a close watch on the situation, the chief minister urged people to focus on two aspects. “One is vaccination, one must get vaccinated and number two is to follow protocols in terms of wearing masks and maintaining social distance as this is a very critical time. “This is the time when the virus is spreading and the only way to ensure it does not affect you or your family is to follow the protocols and get vaccinated,” Sangma said. On the rollout of the booster dose, the chief minister said a lot of people have come forward to get the precautionary dose. “Our vaccination percentage in terms of the drive that has been going on has also crossed 70 per cent. We are going aggressively in terms of our inoculation drive and are hopeful that we should be able to cover more and more population,” Sangma said. The north-eastern state on Monday recorded two more COVID-19 related deaths and 70 fresh infections pushing the death toll to 1,487 and the tally to 85,304, a health official said. Health Services director Dr Aman War said that the fresh infections have increased the number of active coronavirus cases to 448. As many as 83,369 people have recovered from the disease, including 14 in the last 24 hours. (PTI)

The Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) Monday suspended dine-in facility at restaurants and closed bars in view of the rising Covid cases in the city, but decided against imposing a full lockdown yet. A DDMA meeting, chaired by Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal and attended by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, also discussed ways to strictly enforce existing restrictions to check the rising cases of the coronavirus and its Omicron variant. “In view of the increase in positive cases it was decided to close the restaurants and bars and to allow 'take away' facility only. It was also decided to allow operation of only one weekly market per day per zone,” Baijal said in a tweet. Officers were also advised to strictly ensure people wear masks and adhere to social distancing norms in markets and public areas to break the chain of transmission, he said in another tweet. It was also discussed in the DDMA meeting that restrictions imposed in Delhi should be extended in National Capital Territory Region also in view of the unhindered flow of people. Currently, the dine-in facility in restaurants was allowed to operate at 50 per cent of their seating capacity. The bars were also permitted to open with 50 percent seating capacity. The meeting also discussed scaling down full seating capacity in Metro trains and city buses from current to 50 percent, officials said. Kejriwal had on Sunday said the rapid speed at which the coronavirus was spreading in Delhi had been a matter of “deep concern”, yet added there was no plan to impose lockdown. There would be no lockdown if people wear masks, he had stated. (PTI)

At least nine senior officers, including an Additional DGP and one DIG ranked officials, of Assam Police have tested positive for COVID-19 in the past two days. On condition of anonymity, a senior Assam Police official told PTI on Monday that some of his colleagues are admitted in hospital, while others are in home isolation. “All of them are doing fine and there is nothing to worry about,” he said. These officers attended the two-day conference of superintendents of police on January 3-4 in Duliajan, chaired by Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. Dignitaries like state DGP Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta, Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla and Intelligence Bureau Director Arvind Kumar were also present among others. “We cannot confirm that the infection spread from the conference as almost a week has passed since then and they have tested positive in the last one or two days,” the senior official said. (PTI)

People with higher levels of T cells from common cold coronaviruses are less likely to become infected with SARS-CoV-2, the strain which causes COVID-19, according to a new UK study led by Indian-origin researchers on Monday. The study, published in the journal ‘Nature Communications' and led by Imperial College London researchers, claims to provide the first evidence of a protective role for T cells. While previous studies have shown that T cells induced by other coronaviruses can recognise SARS-CoV-2, the new study examines how the presence of these T cells at the time of SARS-CoV-2 exposure influences infection. The researchers believe their findings provide a blueprint for a second-generation, universal vaccine that could prevent infection from current and future SARS-CoV-2 variants, including Omicron. “Our study provides the clearest evidence to date that T cells induced by common cold coronaviruses play a protective role against SARS-CoV-2 infection. These T cells provide protection by attacking proteins within the virus, rather than the spike protein on its surface,” said senior author Professor Ajit Lalvani, Director of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Respiratory Infections Health Protection Research Unit at Imperial College London. “The spike protein is under intense immune pressure from vaccine-induced antibody, which drives evolution of vaccine escape mutants. In contrast, the internal proteins targeted by the protective T cells we identified mutate much less. Consequently, they are highly conserved between the various SARS-CoV-2 variants, including Omicron,” he explained. “New vaccines that include these conserved, internal proteins would therefore induce broadly protective T cell responses that should protect against current and future SARS-CoV-2 variants,” he said. The study began in September 2020 when most people in the UK had neither been infected nor vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2. It included 52 people who lived with someone with PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection and who had therefore been exposed to the virus. The participants did PCR tests at the outset and four and seven days later, to determine if they developed an infection. Blood samples from the 52 participants were taken within one-six days of them being exposed to the virus. This enabled the researchers to analyse the levels of pre-existing T cells induced by previous common cold coronavirus infections that also cross-recognise proteins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. (PTI)