31st July, 2020
India recorded the highest ever single-day spike of 55,078 of fresh COVID-19 cases on Friday.
It was the second consecutive day the country would log over 50,000 cases, according to federal health ministry data.
The new figure took the total tally to 1,638,870 cases, with recovery over 65 percent.
The death toll also jumped to 35,747, with 779 people dying during the past 24 hours across the country.
India is the third most COVID-affected country in the world, after the United States and Brazil, and the worst-affected in Asia.
There are still 545,318 active cases admitted in hospitals in the country, while 1,057,805 people have been cured and discharged.
The recent surge in the number of COVID-19 cases is mainly attributed to the increased testing of samples, Xinhua reported.
Over 18.8 million samples have been tested so far across the country.
According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), a total of 18,832,970 samples have been tested till July 30, with as many as 642,588 samples tested on Thursday alone.
Efforts are being made to ramp up the per day testing of samples to over one million, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi a couple of days ago.
The country will enter the Unlock-3 phase from Saturday.
According to the fresh guidelines, schools will continue to remain shut till Aug. 31.
But night curfew has been removed.
Yoga institutes and gymnasiums will be allowed to open in the first week of August