India records 61,408 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours

Indian government says it has registered 61,408 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, driving the country’s reported virus tally past 3.1 million. A statement by the Ministry of Health on Monday said “we have reported 836 deaths in the past 24 hours, taking total fatalities up to 57,542.”

India has been recording at least 60,000 new infections per day for the last two weeks. Western Maharashtra state and three southern states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka are the country’s worst-hit regions. New hot spots also continue to feed surges in rural areas of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar states in India’s north.

Meanwhile, India’s recovery rate has reached nearly 75% as more than 2.3 million people affected by the virus have been discharged from hospitals, according to the Health Ministry.

India has reported the third most cases in the world after the United States and Brazil, and its fatalities are the fourth-highest in the world.

The country of 1.4 billion people has been slowly opening up to heal the economy, though areas identified as most affected by the virus remain under lockdown.