Insight Bureau: Here we go again. A third wave may soon be upon us. The number of Omicron cases of Covid in India is above 500 and rising very fast. After all, Omicron seems to be the most contagious variant of the virus that we have seen so far.

It also seems to be a relatively mild virus. From what we know so far, most patients either exhibit no symptoms or experience only some trifling cough and cold. So it is quite possible that we have no idea what the actual number of cases is—it could be many times more than what has been detected. And we do not yet know with any certainty how effective our current vaccines are against Omicron. However, worldwide, hospitalization and death figures for Omicron have been low.

As more and more cases of the Omicron variant are coming forward in the country, many states and union territories are tightening their COVID-19 restrictions and imposing a night curfew during the festive season, to prevent the third wave of COVID-19 pandemic from hitting the country.

India witnessed a steep rise in Omicron cases with the overall caseload surging to 594 in the country. The highly transmissible variant has now been detected in 19 states with Delhi and Maharashtra leading the charts followed by Kerala.

The distribution of cases across states is as follows: Delhi leads the tally with 142 cases (63 cases in the last 24 hours), not far behind is Maharashtra with 141 cases, 57 in Kerala, 49 in Gujarat, 43 in Rajasthan. 44 in Telangana, 34 in Tamil Nadu, 38 in Karnataka, nine in Madhya Pradesh, six each in West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh, five in Haryana, eight in Odisha, three in Chandigarh,Jammu & Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh and one each in Himachal Pradesh, Ladakh and Uttarakhand.

However, the Arvind Kejriwal government on Sunday ordered imposition of night curfew in the national capital from tomorrow (December 27) from 11:00 PM to 5:00 AM, in view of the rapidly increasing cases.