Coronavirus daily update: COVID-19 cases explained in charts

India reported over 12,000 COVID-19 new cases on March 2. Active cases dip but above 1.68 lakh mark. Over 1.48 crore beneficiaries have been vaccinated till date.

Chaitanya Mallapur

March 02, 2021 / 10:56 IST

File image: AP Photo/Bikas Das

As many as 12,286 new cases of novel coronavirus were reported, with India’s total COVID-19 cases above 1.11 crore, as per health ministry’s March 2 update. New cases reported are the lowest in the last seven days.

India reported 91 new deaths and 12,464 new recoveries in the last 24 hours, the latest release shows. As many as 1,48,54,136 beneficiaries have been vaccinated across India according to March 2, update.

Active cases at 1,68,358 with a fall of 269 cases on March 2. Maharashtra now reports the most (78,825 or 47 percent) active cases in the country, followed by Kerala (48,159) and Karnataka (5,843).

Maharashtra reported the most (6,397 or 52 percent) new cases in the last 24 hours, followed by Kerala (1,938), Punjab (633), Tamil Nadu (474) and Gujarat (427). These five states account for 80 percent of all the new cases reported in India.

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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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