Last Updated : Oct 24, 2020 09:39 AM IST | Source: Reuters

France becomes 7th country with more than 1 million COVID-19 cases

Over the past 24 hours, France registered a record 42,032 new cases, taking the total to 1,041,075, government data showed.

Reuters

The number of confirmed novel coronavirus infections jumped over one million on Friday, making France the seventh country to reach that milestone.

Over the past 24 hours, France registered a record 42,032 new cases, taking the total to 1,041,075, government data showed.

The United States has 8.4 million cases, followed by India with 7.8 million, Brazil with 5.3 million, Russia with 1.5 million and Argentina and Spain with each just over one million.

Close

On Thursday, the daily case count rose above 40,000 for the first time, after breaking through 20,000 on Oct. 9 and through 10,000 on Sept. 9 as the virus spread rapidly and France started testing more after summer.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

View more
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.

View more
Show

related news

During the March-May lockdown, the highest number of infections in one day had been 7,578 on March 31, though doctors say the number was probably much higher as testing then was mainly limited to hospitals and retirement homes.

France also registered 298 new deaths on Friday, taking the total to 34,508.

The number of people in hospital with COVID-19 jumped by 976 to 15,008, the biggest one-day increase since early April. Mid-April 32,300 people were hospitalised with the virus.

The number of people in intensive care units - which is the ultimate test of a health system's ability to cope with the virus - rose by 122 to 2,441. At the height of the epidemic mid-April, 7,150 people were in ICUs.

President Emmanuel Macron said a curfew taking effect for two thirds of France on Friday night could be tightened further if it shows no results.

"We will have to live with this virus at least till next summer," he said.

Macron said that as soon as new infections drop back to 3,000-5,000 cases per day, the curfew could be eased. That level was last seen at the end of August.
First Published on Oct 24, 2020 09:29 am

tags #coronavirus #Covid-19 #France #World News