International flights on July 20: Daily updates on arrivals, departures under Vande Bharat Mission

Check flights leaving for and from India to bring back stranded Indians.

Moneycontrol News

July 20, 2020 / 07:52 IST

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The Centre started the ‘Vande Bharat Mission’ on May 6 to help those stranded due to the novel coronavirus pandemic reach their destinations via international repatriation flights.

According to the Civil Aviation Ministry, 2,405 repatriation flights were operated under the Vande Bharat Mission till July 18, carrying over 3.22 lakh passengers. Of these, 1,201 were inbound flights carrying 2,26,887 passengers and 1,204 were outbound flights with 96,063 fliers.

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Here is the repatriation international flight schedule for July 20:

Air India repatriation schedule for July 20: Ex-India to foreign stations (in local time)

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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