The Union ministry of health and family welfare has stated that the total number of cases infected with the new COVID-19 strain from UK has climbed to 82 in the country.

The results are based on the genome sequencing of Covid-19 positive samples released by the Indian Sars-Cov-2 Genomics Consortium (Insacog) labs. The Central government created a network of 10 advanced labs across the country last month to step up disease surveillance in the wake of mutations detected in the Sars-Cov-2 virus that cause Covid-19. They are – NIBMG Kolkata, ILS Bhubaneswar, NIV Pune, CCS Pune, CCMB Hyderabad, CDFD Hyderabad, InSTEM Bengaluru, NIMHANS Bengaluru, IGIB Delhi and NCDC Delhi.

As per reports, the all infected patients have been kept in single rooms for isolation at designated health care facilities of respective state governments. Their close contacts have also been put under quarantine.

From November 25 to December 23, 2020, about 33,000 passengers disembarked at various Indian airports from the UK. All these passengers are being tracked and subjected by states to RT-PCR tests to detect Covid-19.

Meanwhile, a streak of low daily new cases of COVID-19 is being reported from the country with only 18,139 people testing positive on Friday. The number of new deaths has also remained under 300 for the past two weeks.