HomeNewscoronavirusCoronavirus Daily Update: COVID-19 cases explained in charts

Coronavirus Daily Update: COVID-19 cases explained in charts

India reported 20,035 COVID-19 new cases according to the official update, on January 1, 2021. New cases below 25,000 mark for 12th day in a row. Active cases in India continue to slide further with a fall of over 3,000 cases in a day. Recoveries above 98 lakh with a recovery rate of 96.1 percent.

January 01, 2021 / 11:22 IST
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As many as 20,035 new coronavirus infections were reported in the last 24 hours, taking India's COVID-19 case count to above 1.02 crore, as per the health ministry’s January 1, 2021 update.

India reported 256 new deaths, the seventh day that the toll stayed below 300, and 23,181 recoveries in the last 24 hours. Active cases continue to decline and fell to 2,54,254 with a drop of 3,402 cases in a day.

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Kerala reported the most (5,215 or 26 percent) new cases followed by Maharashtra (3,509), West Bengal (1,170), Chhattisgarh (1,035) and Karnataka (952). These five states account for 59 percent of all the new cases in the country. 

COVID-19 Vaccine
Frequently Asked Questions

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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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