India reports highest daily spike of nearly 50,000 COVID-19 cases

NEW DELHI: India's federal health ministry on Monday morning reported 708 more deaths and 49,931 new COVID-19 cases during the past 24 hours, taking the number of deaths to 32,771 and total cases to 1,435,453.

This has been the highest single-day spike in terms of fresh COVID-19 cases in the country.

According to ministry officials, 917,568 people have been discharged from hospitals after showing improvement, and the number of active cases in the country stood at 485,114.

As per the figures of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the total number of samples tested up to July 26 is 16,806,803, including 515,472 samples tested on Sunday alone.

India is ramping up testing samples for COVID-19. On Saturday, northern state Uttar Pradesh's Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath directed officials to enhance the state's COVID-19 testing capacity to 100,000 tests per day by Monday.

Chief Minister of the central state Madhya Pradesh Shivraj Singh Chouhan tested positive for COVID-19 on Saturday, becoming the first chief minister in the country who has been found infected with COVID-19.

The Indian government has decided to extend the existing restrictions on limited domestic flight operations and caps on airfares till Nov. 24. Currently, domestic flight operations are allowed to function at 45 percent of their total capacity.