Coronavirus Daily Update: COVID-19 cases explained in charts

India reported over 18,000 COVID-19 new cases according to the official update, on January 8, 2021. After a rise, active cases fall by over 2,000 cases in a day. Recoveries now above 1 crore with a recovery rate of 96.4 percent.

Chaitanya Mallapur

January 08, 2021 / 11:14 IST

Source: Reuters

As many as 18,139 new cases of novel coronavirus were reported, with India’s total COVID-19 cases now above 1.04 crore, as per health ministry’s January 8, 2021 update.

India reported 234 new deaths and 20,539 new recoveries in the last 24 hours, the latest release shows. After a rise on the previous day, active cases dip to 2,25,449 with a fall of 2,634 cases on January 8.

Kerala reported the most (5,051) new cases in the last 24 hours, followed by Maharashtra (3,729), Chhattisgarh (1,010), West Bengal (921) and Tamil Nadu (805). These five states account for 63 percent of all the new cases reported in India.

2021-covid-19-update Jan8 (1)

Maharashtra also reported the most 72 deaths, followed by Kerala (25), Delhi (19), West Bengal (18), Madhya Pradesh (12) and Tamil Nadu (12). These six states account for 68 percent of all the new deaths reported across the country.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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