Telangana reported 181 new COVID-19 cases, pushing the tally to 6,79,245.
Two more Omicron cases have been reported in Telangana, taking the total number of cases of the new coronavirus variant in the State to eight, a health official said on Friday.
Other than the eight, a boy from West Bengal who flew to Kolkata with his family members without entering the city after his samples were collected at the international airport here a few days ago was also found to be positive for Omicron.
Observing that all the eight cases were those of passengers who arrived from abroad, State Director of Public Health G Srinivasa Rao said neither community transmission nor locals testing positive for Omicron occurred in Telangana so far.
One of the positive cases is a woman who came from the UK and belongs to Hanumakonda at Warangal in Telangana.
She had tested negative in the test conducted at Hyderabad airport, but found positive for COVID-19 when tested after eight days of home quarantine.
Genome sequencing of samples collected from her revealed her to be positive for Omicron, the official said.
The Telangana government is fully geared up to deal with a third wave if it occurs, he said.
The government has made arrangements to treat over 60,000 patients at the same time in the State.
He appealed to the people not to panic over Omicron as the treatment protocols and others remain the same. The new variant does not seem to cause serious illness.
He stressed the importance of vaccination and following COVID-appropriate behaviour to effectively deal with the virus.
A health department bulletin said later in the day that samples of four persons are awaited for their Omicron variant status.
Meanwhile, Telangana reported 181 new COVID-19 cases, pushing the tally to 6,79,245, while the death count rose to 4,013 with one more fatality.
The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) accounted for the most number of cases with 84, followed by Hanumakonda (14) and Ranga Reddy (13) districts, a state government bulletin said, providing details as of 5.30 PM on Friday.
The number of recoveries outnumbered fresh cases on Friday with 203 people recovering from the infectious disease. The cumulative number of recoveries till date was 6,71,450.
The number of active cases was 3,782, the bulletin said.
It said 39,781 samples were tested today and the total number of samples tested till date was 2,92,17,892.
The samples tested per million population was 7,85,005.
The case fatality rate in the State was 0.59 per cent. The recovery rate in Telangana was 98.84 per cent.