YEREVAN, JULY 3, ARMENPRESS. The number of newly identified coronavirus infections in India rose by 20,903 in the past 24 hours to bring the total to 625,544, while the number of virus-related fatalities also went up by 379 to reach 18,213, TASS reports citing the national Health Ministry.

The daily increase of infections was record-breaking for India, the previous record high was reported on June 28 (more than 19,900 new cases). According to the ministry, 227,439 patients are hospitalized with coronavirus across the country, while 379,892 people recovered from the infection.

According to the ministry experts, the number of confirmed cases is growing not just because the rates of transmission are exacerbating, but also because the number of conducted coronavirus tests is steadily increasing. In the past 24 hours, India performed 241,576 such tests.

In late December 2019, Chinese officials notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in every corner of the globe. On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic.