India reports less than 10,000 new COVID-19 cases as third wave ebbs

All the states have registered fall in active infections, except for Delhi and Meghalaya which reported a marginal increase

Sumi Sukanya Dutta

February 28, 2022 / 09:33 AM IST

Representative image

India has logged 8,013 fresh COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours while the active coronavirus cases in India, too, are now just above the 1 lakh mark, suggesting that Omicron-fuelled third wave in India may have nearly settled.

The new cases take the number of total confirmed coronavirus cases in the country to 4,29,24,130.

A total of 119 COVID-19 deaths were also registered, taking the official toll of fatalities due to the infectious disease to 5,13, 843. Kerala, meanwhile, continued to report backlog deaths as part of its data reconciliation exercise and registered 46 backlog deaths.

No state in the country, however, reported more than 20 deaths in the 24-hour period, even though Karnataka, registered the highest, 17, deaths, followed by Kerala and Odisha which logged 16 and 8 deaths respectively.

The active COVID-19 caseload in the country stands at 1,02,601—8,871 lower than the previous day. The active cases now comprise of 0.24 per cent of the total confirmed cases.

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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