According to official records, a 66-year-old man from Bengaluru became one of only two cases of the Omicron coronavirus variant in India after arriving on November 20 and flying to Dubai seven days later.
According to Bengaluru’s municipal corporation, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike, he arrived from South Africa on November 20 at Bangalore’s international airport with a negative COVID-19 test report (BBMP).
He had received two doses of a coronavirus vaccine.
Because of the Omicron outbreak, his samples were re-collected and sent for genome sequencing on November 22, designating him as a “at-risk” traveller.
COVID-19 was found to be negative in all 24 people who had contact with him. The authorities tested 240 people who had come into contact with the primary contacts of the patent and found them to be negative.
Furthermore, on November 23, the man had another COVID-19 test at a private lab and received a negative result.
He left the hotel around 12:30 a.m. on November 27, took a cab to the airport, and flew to Dubai.
A 46-year-old health worker from Bengaluru has also tested positive for the Omicron variant, joining him.
The highly contagious strain discovered in southern Africa poses a new challenge to global efforts to combat the pandemic, with several countries already reimposing restrictions that many had hoped were no longer needed.
Since the outbreak began, coronaviruses have been discovered all over the world, but this is the first since the dominant Delta variant was discovered in India in October 2020.
Although the heavily mutated Omicron strain is more contagious than previous variants, there is no evidence that it is any deadlier.
