Chennai: Tamilnadu Health Minister M Subramanian has said the Covid-19 cluster at the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital in Chennai shows that the Omicron variant is spreading in the community.
Speaking to the media, he said the situation has changed from when it was only international travellers who tested positive.
Tamilnadu has requested the Centre to grant the State permission, as a special case, to announce Omicron confirmed cases rather than wait for reports from the National Institute of Virology, owing to its expertise in whole-genome sequencing.
Reiterating the demand for necessary approvals, Subramanian claimed that by the time the NIV confirmed the samples, those testing positive in the State get discharged after treatment.
Subramanian said of the 97 persons recently detected with S-gene drop inĀ Tamilnadu, the NIV confirmed the presence of Omicron variant in 34, of whom 18 have all already been discharged while 16 are undergoing treatment.
Amid the rising threat of the Omciron variant, Subramanian had recently announced that foreign travellers entering the state will have to undergo a mandatory seven-day quarantine.
Subramanian said that passengers from ‘at risk’ countries like the UK, South Africa, Brazil, Ghana, China, Israel and the European Union will have to undergo a mandatory RT-PCR test on arrival. If they test positive for Covid-19, they will be taken to hospital. If their tests are negative, they shall remain in home isolation for seven days, the Minister said.