For the first time in India, a 7-year-old kid in West Bengal had tested positive for the Omicron Covid-19 variant. The shocking development has come when the variant has been rapidly moving across the country. The kid has also become the first case recorded in West Bengal, while both of his parents had tested negative. The boy has been getting treated in the hospital.

According to reports, the boy is a native of Murshidabad district and confirmed to have contracted the variant on Wednesday - December 15. The state health department has said that he had arrived in West Bengal from Hyderabad and he had a travel history of returning to India from Abu Dhabi. He had landed in Hyderabad from the Emirati city after which he travelled to West Bengal. After the confirmation, the bo has been moved to the local hospital in Murshidabad district for treatments. 

The state health department has asserted that the parents of the boy had undergone testing and their results returned negative. Through his kid, the state had recorded its first Omicron case. Currently, Omicron has got the grounds of spread in several states including Delhi, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Karnataka, and Gujarat and the country's total tally of the Omicron variant stands at 49 with no deaths reported. As the New Year and holiday season are fast approaching, the government has been tightening up the restrictions to curb the spread.

On the other hand, Tamil Nadu may report its first Omicron case as six persons, suspected with Omicron variant, have been hospitalized. Health Minister Ma Subramanian has said that a 47-year-old man who had arrived in Chennai from Nigeria via Doha had tested positive for the Covid-19 pandemic and he has reported having an S-gene drop indicating Omicron. The minister further said that five relatives of the Nigeria return had also tested positive for the pandemic.

All six of them have been hospitalized in the King Institute of Preventive Medicine and Research campus in Guindy. The minister said, "They are asymptomatic. There was an S-gene drop in all of them and we have sent the samples for genome sequencing." "We will be able to declare the virus as an Omicron variant only if the INSTEM lab in Bengaluru confirms it", Ma Subramanian added. According to reports, the person from Nigeria had undergone a random test in the airport after landing and if all of them confirmed to have contracted the Omicron variant, it will be the state's first major cluster of the variant. 

The health minister further said, "While we test all passengers from countries listed as 'at risk' by WHO as per ICMR guidelines, we collect random samples from 2% of passengers travelling from other countries. So far, the state has tested 11,459 passengers from 11 'at risk' countries and 1,699 passengers who have travelled from other countries over the past week. Of these 37, people had tested positive for the Covid-19 pandemic." 

While Tamil Nadu is preparing its battle against Omicron by issuing strict guidelines to the international travellers and by banning the people's gathering on the beaches during the New Year celebrations,  the state has been appealing to the residents to get fully vaccinated. Tamil Nadu's Director of Public Health Dr TS Selvavinayagam has said that the strongest weapons in the hands of the people are Covid vaccines and appropriate behaviour.