Coronavirus pandemic | One in every 250 people on Earth have got COVID-19 already

The overall COVID-19 fatalities across the world now reached around 9,98,000 and the World Health Organisation has warned that the COVID-19 death toll could cross the two-million mark soon, even before an effective coronavirus vaccine starts getting used widely across the globe.

Moneycontrol News

September 28, 2020 / 07:55 PM IST

The world’s total coronavirus tally breached the 33 million mark on September 28 and a United Nations estimate elaborated by Worldometer suggests that the novel coronavirus has already infected one in every 250 persons on Earth. The world currently has a population of 7.8 billion.

The overall COVID-19 fatalities across the world now reached around 9,98,000 and the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that the COVID-19 death toll could cross the two-million mark soon, even before an effective coronavirus vaccine starts getting used widely across the globe.

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A per the latest data available with the Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE), at present, the total number of coronavirus cases in the world stands at 33,138,963, while a total of 9,98,380 people have died of the disease so far.

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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