NEW DELHI: 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.

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HERE'S WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Authorities in Sri Lanka have closed key government offices and further expanded a curfew to contain a surging coronavirus outbreak.

The foreign ministry closed the consular affairs office for the week and suspended all services to prevent the public from congregating. The ministry said Thursday it would only accept queries and documentation assistance related to deaths of Sri Lankans overseas, strictly by appointment.

Other departments providing services related to revenue, immigration, pensions, vehicle license and registrations also closed for the week, and a state-sponsored exhibition was canceled.

The outbreak that surfaced this week has grown to 1,034 cases with more than 2,000 others asked to quarantine at home.

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SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea has 69 new confirmed coronavirus cases, most of them in the Seoul region area where health workers are struggling to track transmissions tied to hospitals, churches, schools and an army unit.

The figures released by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency on Thursday brought the national total to 24,422 cases, including 427 deaths.

Forty-nine of the new cases were reported from the Seoul metropolitan area, home to about half of the country's 51 million people. The region has been at the center of a coronavirus resurgence since mid-August.

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CHEYENNE, Wyo. -- Wyoming has reported a new high for the number of people hospitalized for COVID-19 amid a fall surge in coronavirus infections.

Forty-seven people were hospitalized Wednesday. That is up from 24 a week ago, which at the time was the most since daily hospitalizations peaked at 23 in April.

The 47 patients are at 14 hospitals around the state. Wyoming health officials say they are not worried about COVID-19 patients overwhelming any specific hospital. But they do worry about the small intensive-care capacity of most Wyoming hospitals.

Wyoming Medical Center in Casper has the most COVID-19 patients at 12, followed by Sheridan Memorial Hospital with five.

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WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump says he wants everyday Americans to have access to the same experimental treatment he received for the coronavirus.

Trump has played down the threat of the virus since receiving VIP care, but he says in a new video taped in the White House Rose Garden that he wants "to get for you what I got" and will make the drug free.

Trump says he's feeling "great" and "like perfect" and calls his diagnosis "a blessing in disguise."

Trump received an experimental antibody cocktail made by Regeneron through a "compassionate use" exemption. The safety and effectiveness of the drug have not yet been proven. And there is no way for the president or his doctors to know that the drug had any effect. Most people recover from COVID-19.