Aug. 20 (UPI) — India and Ukraine reported record highs in daily COVID-19 cases on Thursday as Russia surpassed 16,000 deaths to the virus.

Health officials in India counted 69,652 cases over Wednesday, making it not only India’s most infections recorded in a 24-hour period but one of the highest daily totals reported by any country during the nine months since the virus emerged late last year in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

With hitting the 70,000 cases mark four times in mid-July, only the United States has registered more cases in a single day, according to data collected by researchers at Johns Hopkins University.

However, while the United States’ figures have been dropping since then, India’s are climbing, continuing an upward trend that began with its first infections at the end of January.

The new infections lifted India’s total to 2.84 million, placing it third globally in cases behind Brazil with 3.4 million and the United States with 5.5 million.

India also reported 977 deaths for a total of 53,866.

Ukraine also inched closer to passing the 100,000-case milestone after reporting a record 2,134 infections over Wednesday, according to data from its Cabinet of Ministers.

Its previous high of 1,967 cases was recorded a day earlier.

It also reported a record of 40 deaths for a total of 2,184.

Russia, which sits fourth worldwide in infections with more than 940,000, reported it had surpassed the grim 16,000 deaths milestone after registering 110 people lost their lives to the virus over Wednesday.

The new deaths put its total at 16,099. It also reported 4,785 new cases, continuing a gradual decline in cases that began in June, according to Russian health data.

Globally, there were nearly 22.5 million cases and more 787,909 deaths to the coronavirus, according to Johns Hopkins University.