The Ministry of Public Health on Thursday reported 658 new positive cases of the coronavirus from 1,301 samples tested over the last 24 hours.

The ministry also reported 42 new deaths from COVID-19 and 1,502 recoveries. With this the total cases is now 27,532, the total reported deaths are 546, and total recoveries are 7,660.

42 is the highest number of deaths the ministry has reported in a single day.

The highest count of new positive cases was reported in Kabul with 415, followed by Bamiyan (62 cases), Takhar (40), Kandahar (27), Balkh (6), Logar (21), Baghlan (17), Ghazni (2), Parwan (7), Kunduz (22), Panjshir (14), Faryab (4), Ghor (5), Zabul (6), and Daikundi (10).

Also, the ministry reported 17 COVID-19 deaths in Kabul, 19 in Herat, 1 in Balkh, 2 in Samangan and 3 in Faryab in the last 24 hours.

So far, 61,599 samples have been tested in the government’s testing centers and there are 19,326 active COVID-19 cases in the country, according to data by the Ministry of Public Health.

The number of deaths from COVID-19 globally is more than 448,962 and the number of global coronavirus cases is 8,349,972, according to Johns Hopkins University.