PM Modi's April 14 lockdown extension message gets record viewership with 4 billion viewing minutes

The first lockdown announcement was viewed by as many as 197 million people.

Maryam Farooqui

April 16, 2020 / 21:00 IST

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s address to the nation on April 14 announcing lockdown extension till May 3 garnered the highest viewership among all of his four addresses on COVID-19.

According to BARC-Nielsen data released on April 16, the lockdown extension address garnered 3,937.3 million viewing minutes on TV across 199 channels. As many as 203 million people switched on their TV sets to watch the prime minister's latest address to the nation on fighting coronavirus.

The April 14 announcement on lockdown extension recorded a viewership higher than that of PM Modi's earlier 21-day lockdown address, which had witnessed 3,862.9 million viewing minutes.

The other two messages – one regarding Janta Curfew, which was announced on March 19, and the other address on April 3, registered 1,275.3 million viewing minutes and 1,024.5 million viewing minutes respectively.

A large number of people tuned into TV channels for the prime minister's announcement on enforcing a nation-wide lockdown and its extension.

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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