New COVID-19 cases in India under 5,000 for third day; active cases hover under 50,000

Four states and Union Territories that included Andaman & Nicobar Island, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand and Sikkim reported small rise in the COVID19 active caseload in the 24-hour period

Sumi Sukanya Dutta

March 09, 2022 / 09:32 IST

Representative image (REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui)

India has reported 4,575 new COVID-19 cases, a tad higher than the daily cases reported on the previous day but the active coronavirus cases continued to hover below 50,000. The new cases take the number of total confirmed tally in the country to 4,29,75,883.

A total of 145 COVID-19 deaths were also registered, taking the toll due to the infectious disease to 5,15,355. Kerala continued to report backlog deaths as part of its data reconciliation exercise registering 100 backlog deaths.

Kerala also registered the highest deaths at 11 in the 24-hour period, followed by Uttar Pradesh (9) and Karnataka (8). Majority of the states and UTs, however, recorded no deaths during the day.

Also Read: Scenes from Hong Kong's COVID-19 crisis

The active COVID-19 caseload in the country now stands at 46,962—down nearly 6 percent from the previous day and 0.12 percent of the total confirmed cases. Active coronavirus cases in Kerala, which has the highest caseload in the country, stands at 13, 493.

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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