Coronavirus Daily Update: COVID-19 cases explained in charts

India reported less than 20,000 COVID-19 new cases according to the official update, on December 22. New cases below 20,000 for the first time since July 2 (173 days). Active cases in India slide below the 3 lakh mark, with a fall of over 11,000 cases in a day. Recoveries above 96 lakh with a recovery rate of 95.6 percent.

Chaitanya Mallapur

December 22, 2020 / 10:41 IST

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As many as 19,556 new cases of novel coronavirus were reported, with India’s total COVID-19 cases now above 1 crore, as per health ministry’s December 22 update. New cases reported below the 20,000 mark for the first time in 173 days.

India reported 301 new deaths (below the 500 mark for the 17th day) and 30,376 recoveries in the last 24 hours, the latest release shows. Active cases continue to drop, to 2,92,518 (these many active cases were reported last on July 12) with a fall of 11,121 cases in a day.

Kerala reported the most (3,423) new cases in the last 24 hours, followed by Maharashtra (2,834), West Bengal (1,515), Chhattisgarh (1,258) and Tamil Nadu (1,071). These five states account for more than half (52 percent) of all the new cases reported in India. Delhi reported (803) less than 1,000 new cases for the first time in over four months.

covid-19-Update-Dec22

Maharashtra reported the most (55) deaths, followed by West Bengal (41), Delhi (27), Kerala (27) and Chhattisgarh (18). These five states account for 56 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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