The highly transmissible Omicron variant now accounts for 75% of the COVID-19 cases in India’s three biggest cities– Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata. 

“The proportion of Omicron cases in the country has increased from 12% to 28% in India during the last week. So, it is rapidly increasing as a proportion of all the Covid infections in the country,” Dr Arora, Chairman of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation, said in an interview to NDTV.

“I must also say something more important and that is around the major metro cities, Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and particularly Delhi, it is over 75 per cent of all the isolates now," Dr Arora explained.

Dr Arora also said that India has been hit by the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic which seems to be driven by the Omicron variant.

The number of Omicron cases in India has touched the 1,892 mark. Maharashtra and Delhi remain the leading contributors with 568 and 382 infections, respectively. Kerala, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu all feature in the top 10 most-hit states due to the variant and have over 100 infections recorded so far. Telangana, Karnataka, Haryana and Odisha are other states in the top 10 list in India, according to the health ministry's bulletin.

Meanwhile,  Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain on Tuesday said that COVID-19 is spreading faster and people need to be cautious.

He also informed that Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who has tested positive for COVID-19, is experiencing mild symptoms.

On rising Omicron cases in the national capital, he said, " 84 per cent of Delhi's total COVID-19 cases in the last two days were of the Omicron variant of coronavirus".

Delhi is expected to report around 4,000 cases today with the positivity rate rising to 6.5 per cent. Currently, 202 patients are admitted to Delhi hospitals.

The active cases in the city have gone to 10,986. In the last 24 hours, Delhi also witnessed one COVID-related death.

India on Tuesday logged as many as 37,379 new Covid-19 cases, which was a spike of 10.75% from the preceding day, according to the morning bulletin shared by the Union health ministry. The spike was the biggest single-day jump in coronavirus cases in the country since early September.

This is the seventh consecutive day that India saw a rise in the daily Covid-19 case count with 33,750 fresh infections reported on Monday.

The active caseload has also been pushed to 1,71,830, accounting for 0.49% of the total cases.

Also read: Why top US expert is optimistic amid surge in Omicron cases