India set another global record in new virus cases, with another 375,000 people infected, as the country gears up to open its vaccination rollout to all adults.
It now has reported more than 18.3 million cases, behind only the United States.
The health ministry also reported 3,645 deaths in the last 24-hour period, bringing India's total to 204,832, according to the health ministry.
Experts believe both figures are an undercount, but it is unclear by how much.
India has set a global record for daily new cases for seven of the past eight days.
Starting Wednesday, all Indians 18 and older were allowed to register on a government app for vaccinations, but social media were flooded with complaints the app had crashed due to high use, and once it was working again, no appointments were available.
The mass vaccination drive for the nation of nearly 1.4 billion people began in January and has crawled along since.
Nearly 10% of people have received one jab, but only around 1.5% have received both required doses.
The latest effort to vaccinate those between ages 18 and 44 is expected to face problems, including whether states even have enough supplies.
On Wednesday, the health minister in hard-hit Maharashtra state promised free vaccines for that age group but clarified the state didn't have enough stock to start giving the vaccines on Saturday.
The recent surge has been partly fed by new variants of the coronavirus, mass public gatherings such as political rallies and religious events that were allowed to continue, and relaxed attitudes on the risks fed by leaders touting victory over the virus.
India's foreign secretary, Harsh Vardhan Shringla, said the country is facing an "unprecedented" second surge with more than three million active cases that have pushed the health system close to collapse, causing the acute shortages of oxygen and other hospital supplies.
Help is coming from overseas.
"There's been an outpouring of, let's say, assistance from various countries," Mr Shringla said, adding that more than 40 nations have committed to send assistance.
On Wednesday, the United States sent the first of several Covid-19 medical shipments to India.
The UK sent a shipment earlier this week while others like France, Germany, Ireland and Australia have also promised help.
Amid the crisis, voting for the eighth and final phase of the West Bengal state elections began on Thursday.
More than eight million people are eligible to vote in at least 11,860 polling stations across the state. The Election Commission has said social distancing measures would be in place.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party have faced criticism over the last few weeks for holding huge election rallies in the state, which health experts suggest might have driven the surge there too. Other political parties also participated in rallies.
The state recorded more than 17,000 cases in the last 24 hours - its highest spike since the pandemic began.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here