Coronavirus Daily Update: COVID-19 cases explained in charts

Despite the high number of cases and deaths reported by India, the country has fared better when compared to other nations in terms of per million population.

Chaitanya Mallapur

January 04, 2021 / 11:25 IST

As many as 16,504 new COVID-19 cases were reported in the previous 24 hours, taking India’s overall tally to 1.03 crore, according to the health ministry’s latest update on January 4.

India reported 214 deaths (below the 300 mark for the 10th day in a row) and 19,557 recoveries in the previous 24 hours, data shows. Active cases continued to drop, to 2.43 lakh with a fall of 3,267 cases in a day.

Kerala reported the most (4,600 or 28 percent) new cases in the last 24 hours, followed by Maharashtra (3,282), West Bengal (896), Tamil Nadu (867) and Karnataka (810). These five states accounted for 63 percent of all the new cases reported in India. Fifteen states are now reporting less than 100 new cases.

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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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