Chennai: There has been no Covid-19 patient infected by the Omicron variant in the State and the government has taken all precautionary efforts to prevent the entry of the virus variant from the 12 countries where they have been reported so far.
Chief Secretary V Irai Anbu held a review meeting with top State level officers and the District Collectors on Monday to brief them about the Omicron threat and also to ensure that the people vaccinated themselves against Coronavirus.
Tests to detect the different variants of Covid-19 were being carried out through the Whole Genomic Sequencing equipment at the State Public Health laboratory and so far of the 469 samples tested only 95 per cent were found to be the Delta variant.
An official press release on Monday said that infection by the Omicron variant can be detected through RT-PCR test and that it had been made compulsory for those flying into the country from the 12 countries that had reported Omicron cases.
Those countries are Botswana, South Africa, all the European countries, England, Hong Kong, China, Israel, New Zealand, Zimbabwe, Singapore, Brazil, Bangladesh and Mauritius.
Even if the passengers from these countries test negative they would have to go for a week's home quarantine and take another RT-PCR test on the eighth day, the press release said.
