COVID-19: Delhi records 1,984 fresh cases; death toll crosses 10,000 mark

These fresh cases came out of 72,335 tests conducted the previous day, including 35,611 RT-PCR tests, according to the latest bulletin issued by the Delhi health department.

PTI

Dec 14, 2020 / 12:20 AM IST

Delhi recorded 1,984 fresh COVID-19 cases on December 13 which pushed the infection tally to 6.07 lakh, while the death toll crossed the 10,000 mark with 33 new fatalities.

These fresh cases came out of 72,335 tests conducted the previous day, including 35,611 RT-PCR tests, according to the latest bulletin issued by the Delhi health department.

The case positivity rate on Sunday stood at 2.74 percent, authorities said. It was 4.96 percent on December 3, 4.78 percent on December 4, 4.2 percent on December 5, 3.68 percent on December 6 and 3.15 percent on December 7.

However, on December 8, the positivity rate rose to 4.23 percent, falling to 3.42 percent on December 9 and 2.46 percent on December 10. It had risen to 3.33 percent again on December 11 and fell to 2.64 percent on December 12. Thirty-three more fatalities were recorded in a day, pushing the toll in the national capital to 10,014, the bulletin said.

On September 21, as many as 32 deaths and 2,548 cases were recorded. The highest single-day spike of 8,593 cases was reported on November 11. The tally of active cases on Sunday dropped to 16,785 from 17,373 the previous day. The bulletin stated that the total number of cases has climbed to 6,07,454, while the recovery rate stood at over 95 percent.

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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