Omicron or Delta, which is more dominant Covid-19 variant during third wave in Karnataka? State Health Minister reveals

Karnataka Health Minister Sudhakar K on Friday said that statistics show that the Delta variant of Covid-19 has become less dominant which is now replaced by the Omicron variant of the virus as against the second wave in the country when the former variant was more dominant over the others.

Sharing the genome sequencing data till Thursday in the state, the Minister said that the Omicron variant is more dominant in the ongoing third wave of Covid-19 with 67.5 percent of the samples testing positive for the variant. On the contrary, the Delta variant, which was more dominant during the second wave with a 90.7 percent positivity rate of the sample, has now become less dominant with a 26 percent positivity rate.

"Which strain is dominating in which wave in Karnataka? As per the genome sequencing sample, the following are the dominant strains: Second wave: 90.7 percent Delta variant, Third-wave: 67.5 percent Omicron variant and 26 percent Delta variant of coronavirus," Sudhakar tweeted.

Meanwhile, Karnataka, on Friday, reported 31,198 fresh cases taking the Covid-19 caseload to 37,23,694, while 50 deaths took the death toll to 38,804, the health department said.

Fresh infections saw a dip by about 7,000 cases compared to Thursday when the number was 38,083, the department said in its bulletin.

It added that 71,092 people were discharged, taking the total number of recoveries to 33,96,093.

The positivity and case-fatality rates for the day were at 20.91 percent and 0.16 percent, respectively. Bengaluru contributed about 50 percent of the infections of the day with 15,199 cases. The city also reported eight deaths.