India reports under 1 lakh COVID-19 cases first time in 31 days

While COVID-19 cases in India, driven by the Omicron variant, have been showing a swift decline over the last few weeks, the situation seems to be getting even better with the pandemic showing signs of ebbing in every state and UT.

Sumi Sukanya Dutta

February 07, 2022 / 10:10 IST

India has recorded 83,876 daily COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours which means that under 1 lakh fresh infections were registered in a day, for the first time in 31 days.

This takes the COVID-19 tally of total confirmed cases in the country to 4,22, 72, 014 cases while the number of active cases is now 11,08, 938 in India, which came down by 1,16,073 as compared to the day before.

This also marked a decrease of 9.4 per cent in the active cases in India in the last 24 hours and the pandemic may be shrinking at the rate of 7 per cent in the country.

Another relieving news is that no state of Union Territory, including Kerala and Manipur which had shown increase in active cases in the last week, however, reported a rise in the active COVID-19 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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