Kolkata’s municipal corporation declared 17 micro containment zones in residential clusters where more than 5 infections have been reported. People living in the zones are not allowed to leave the area to try to contain the spread of the disease.
Ajoy Chakrobarty, the state’s director of health services, said he was holding meetings with private hospitals to ensure health facilities are ready to deal with the rising number of cases.
India witnessed a devastating second wave of Covid-19 last year when the daily average number of new cases peaked at around 400,000.
Caseloads had dropped significantly since then. For many months the national tally remained well under 10,000 cases a day.
Now, officials and medical experts fear the Omicron variant might fuel a third wave of the disease.