The Latest: New Delhi's rising cases prompt mass test effort

NEW DELHI — India has registered another record daily high in new virus cases as New Delhi emerged as its worst-hit city.

India registered 16,922 cases in the past 24 hours, taking the national total to 473,105. The Health Ministry on Thursday also reported 418 more deaths, taking fatalities up to 14,894. The ministry said the recovery rate was continuing to improve at 56%.

With New Delhi causing a major concern with 70,390 cases, authorities have decided to carry out a house-to-house screening in the capital over the next two weeks, a major exercise covering a population of nearly 22 million.

New Delhi’s government has projected that cases in the capital area alone could expand to more than half a million by late July, and is considering taking over luxury hotels and stadiums to convert into field hospitals.

Armed forces personnel are providing medical care and attention to coronavirus patients kept in railroad coaches that have been turned into medical wards at nine locations in the Indian capital.

India's financial capital of Mumbai and manufacturing hub Chennai are also among India's hardest-hit areas.

The ministry said it has ramped up testing to more than 200,000 per day across the country, raising the total number of samples tested so far to nearly 7.3 million.

___

HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE VIRUS OUTBREAK:

— Infections are climbing rapidly among young Americans, a generational shift that puts them in greater peril than many realize and endangers older people who cross their paths.

— New York, Connecticut and New Jersey ask visitors from states with high coronavirus infection rates to quarantine in an announcement made as summer travel would normally swing into high gear.

— Australia’s Qantas airline plans to cut at least 6,000 jobs...