Coronavirus Daily Update: COVID-19 cases explained in charts

India reported over 16,000 COVID-19 new cases on February 26. Active cases have now crossed 1.55 lakh. Over 1.34 crore beneficiaries have been vaccinated till date.

Chaitanya Mallapur

February 26, 2021 / 01:09 PM IST

Image: AP

India reported 16,577 new cases of coronavirus in the last 24 hours, taking the country's tally to above 1.10 crore, the health ministry said on February 26.

As many as 120 deaths were reported and 12,179 people recovered from COVID-19 during the period, the latest release shows. India reported its highest single-day vaccination as 8,01,480 people were inoculated against the virus, taking the number of beneficiaries to 1,34,72,643.

Active cases rose to 1,55,986 with an increase of 4,278 cases on February 26. At 65,461, Maharashtra has the highest active cases in the country, accounting for 42 percent of the load, followed by Kerala (52,164) and Karnataka (5,595).

Maharashtra also reported the most (8,702 or 52 percent) new cases in the last 24 hours followed by Kerala (3,677), Punjab (563), Tamil Nadu (467) and Karnataka (453). These five states account for 84 percent of all the new cases 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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