India’s coronavirus cases jump by 67,000

India reported another record daily rise in novel coronavirus infections on Thursday, while the death toll from COVID-19 surpassed 47,000.

READ MORE

India's cases top 2.3 million; fatality rate drops

Two dead over anti-Islam Facebook post in India

China eases travel restrictions for Europeans

Infections grew by 66,999 on Thursday from a day earlier to reach a total of nearly 2.4 million to date, India's health ministry said.

The country, with the world's biggest case load behind the United States and Brazil, has now reported a jump of 50,000 cases or more each day for 15 straight days.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi attends a meeting. File photo

Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a video conference Tuesday with the top elected officials of 10 states that together account for about 80% of India’s total cases, urging them to rigorously apply the strategies of containment, surveillance and contact tracing to drive the fatality rate below 1%.

Modi also urged testing to be ramped up in several states as it has been in the capital region of Delhi.

The Indian Council of Medical Research, India’s top medical research body, said that more than 733,000 samples were tested for COVID-19 on Tuesday, but didn’t break down how many underwent the gold standard RT-PCR test compared to the antigen test, a cheaper and more efficient though less accurate blood test that looks for antibodies.