Coronavirus pandemic | Maharashtra COVID-19 tally surpasses China

Maharashtra registers the highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country with its capital Mumbai reporting 48,774

Moneycontrol News

June 08, 2020 / 12:28 IST

Maharashtra's COVID-19 tally has reached nearly 86,000, thus surpassing China — the country where novel coronavirus was first reported in 2019.

According to the Union Health Ministry data on June 8, India registered 206 COVID-19 fatalities and a record single-day spike of 9,983 cases till 8 am. Of these, Maharashtra reported 91 deaths and 3,007 coronavirus cases.

With this, the total tally of the state rises to 85,975, exceeding even that of China, whose total number of cases stood at 84,191, as per Johns Hopkins University data.

Maharashtra registers the highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in India, with its capital Mumbai reporting 48,774 – the highest in the state.

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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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