In the past 24 hours as fresh coronavirus infections surged by another 69,878 new cases on Saturday.

India has recorded another 24-hour jump in coronavirus infections as the disease spreads across the country’s southern states after plateauing in the capital and the financial center of Mumbai.

India’s Health Ministry reported 69,878 new cases on Saturday, bringing the total to 2,975,701. Globally India has been reporting the biggest daily rise in cases for 18 consecutive days.

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Some 2.2 million people have recovered from the disease in India since the first case was diagnosed in late January.

India has the third-highest caseload after the United States and Brazil, and its 55,794 deaths give it the fourth-highest death toll in the world.

India has the third-highest caseload in the world after the United States and Brazil.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organization, said Friday that the goal was to end the pandemic within two years of its first emergence in Wuhan, China, late last year.

South Korea is banning large gatherings, shutting nightspots and churches and removing fans from professional sports nationwide in an attempt to slow a resurgence of coronavirus infections.

Health Minister Park Neung-hoo announced the measures Saturday after officials reported 332 newly confirmed cases, marking the ninth straight day of triple-digit increases.

Most of the new cases were in the Seoul metropolitan area, which has been at the center of the viral surge of recent weeks. But infections were also reported in practically every major city and in towns across the country.

The government had already imposed the tighter restrictions in the capital region earlier this week, a move they resisted for months out of economic concerns. Park said it has become inevitable to expand the same measures nationwide with the virus spreading more broadly.