<span style="color: #222222;">Maharashtra's Health Minister Rajesh Tope today said that even though cases of COVID-19 are rising exponentially, most of these are mild in nature. <br />''<br />''Addressing a press conference in Mumbai, Mr. Tope said that despite the positivity rate being close to 14 percent in Mumbai, cases of hospitalisation or patients being in ICU or on ventilators are very low.<br />''<br />''He added that there is no new variant and the genome sequencing has confirmed that this surge is being driven by the Omicron variant, including the BA 4 and BA 5 types.<br />''<br />''The Health Minister said the state is trying to convince people to get fully vaccinated via the 'Har Ghar Dastak' programme. He said people are also being counselled to avail the Precaution Dose. </span><br />