Coronavirus Update | Daily COVID-19 count in India lowest in 45 days

The daily positivity further declined to 8.36 percent, remaining below 10 percent for five consecutive days, while the weekly positivity rate dropped to 9.84 percent, health ministry data showed.

PTI

May 29, 2021 / 12:14 PM IST

Image Source: Reuters

The single day rise in coronavirus cases was recorded at 1,73,790, the lowest in last 45 days, taking India’s total tally of COVID-19 cases to 2,77,29,247, according to the Union health ministry data updated on Saturday.

The daily positivity further declined to 8.36 percent, remaining below 10 percent for five consecutive days, while the weekly positivity rate dropped to 9.84 percent, it said.

The death toll climbed to 3,22,512 with 3,617 daily deaths, the data updated by the ministry at 8 am showed.

Also, 20,80,048 tests were conducted on Friday taking the total cumulative tests conducted so far for detection of COVID-19 in the country to 34,11,19,909.

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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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