1,700 reinfected in ten days

Some 1,700 COVID-19 cases reported in the past ten days involved people who have been reinfected with the virus, while Omicron remains the dominant variant amongst the community, the Health Ministry said on Tuesday.

From January 15 to 24, a total of 1,690 people were reinfected with coronavirus, the ministry said, without specifying the variant.

Announcing the findings of the epidemiological surveillance unit, the ministry said that Omicron is still driving the wave of infections with 169 out of 192 samples (88%) sequenced on Friday, being positive for the variant.

Another 126 out of 133 samples taken between January 9 and 16 (94.7%) came back positive for Omicron. Only seven of the samples were attributed to the Delta variant.

Although none of the cases sequenced involved people who needed hospitalisation following the sampling, a number of COVID-19 patients already hospitalised tested

positive for Omicron.

The variant was traced in 39 of the 59 samples taken from people hospitalised with coronavirus between January 1 and 17. Of the 59, seven were Delta and another 13 were unspecified.

On an encouraging note, the ministry said that coronavirus cases recorded a 35% decrease between January 15 and 21 compared with the previous reporting period of January 8 to 14.

The decrease was recorded across the board for all ages, with the total number of Covid infections traced in the last ten days being 13,997, compared to 21,686 cases in the previous period.