NEW DELHI — India’s health ministry reported 357,229 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours and 3,449 deaths on Tuesday.

India’s official average of daily confirmed cases has soared from 65,000 on April 1 to about 370,000. The average daily deaths have increased from 300 to more than 3,000.

The infections and deaths are mounting with alarming speed. A top U.S. health expert warns the coming weeks in the country will be “horrible.”

Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health, says he is concerned Indian policymakers believe things will improve in the next few days.

“I’ve been … trying to say to them, `If everything goes very well, things will be horrible for the next several weeks. And it may be much longer,’” he said.

India’s official count of coronavirus cases surpassed 20 million Tuesday, nearly doubling in the past three months. The confirmed deaths passed 220,000 in a country of 1.4 billion people, but it is considered an undercount.

The U.S., with one-fourth the population of India, has recorded more than 2 1/2 times as many deaths with 577,000.