India Reports 78,000 New Coronavirus Infections

India has registered 78,524 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, driving the country's total since the pandemic began to 6.8 million.

The Health Ministry on Thursday also reported 971 deaths in the past 24 hours, taking the death toll to 1,05,526.

India has witnessed a steady drop of confirmed coronavirus cases for three consecutive weeks now — from recording more than 86,000 daily cases in the last two weeks of September to an average of more than 70,000 cases daily so far this month. The numbers have also fallen sharply from earlier in September when daily cases averaged around 93,000 in India.

More than 1.1 million samples have been tested daily on an average so far in October, according to the Health Ministry.