It took more than five months for India to reach the bleak milestone of 1 million cases of the novel coronavirus. The next million came in just 21 days. The third million was faster still: 16 days. The increase in cases is unlikely to ebb anytime soon, experts say, as a galloping outbreak spreads to new parts of the country and political leaders continue to reopen the economy. This week, India recorded the highest one-day jump in new cases — more than 77,000 — anywhere in the world since the pandemic began.

Bhramar Mukherjee, a biostatistician at the University of Michigan who developed a model to predict India’s outbreak, said the country will shortly overtake Brazil, putting it second to the United States in total cases. “The only question is whether India is going to catch up with the United States,” she said.

The virus has now spread throughout the world’s second-most-populous country, reaching even isolated Indigenous tribes in a far-flung Indian territory. The pandemic has also crippled economic activity — experts believe the economy contracted by 20 percent in the three months to June — with only anemic signs of recovery.

Yet there is little alarm and even less outrage. The coronavirus often slips off the front pages, and national health officials conduct briefings only once a week. Overall approval ratings for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi remain sky-high, although a quarter of those polled in the same recent survey said the handling of the pandemic was his biggest failure.

Government officials regularly highlight India’s comparatively low rate of deaths as a percentage of cases to indicate their efforts are working. Testing has increased dramatically but remains far below many other countries on a per capita basis. Some find reassurance in India’s overall fatality figure of about 62,000, which is lower than in Brazil and the United States at similar points in their respective outbreaks.

India has a predominantly youthful population, something that experts say may be helping to reduce deaths. Some also speculate the disease may be less severe here for as yet unproven reasons, although concerns remain that fatalities are missing from the official count.

In some cities, the pressure on the health system has also eased. In May and June, coronavirus patients faced frantic — and sometimes fatal — searches for scarce hospital beds in hard-hit metropolises such as Mumbai and Delhi. More recently, the number of new cases per day in those cities has stabilized.

But the virus has also moved into India’s vast hinterland, where medical facilities are even less equipped to cope with serious cases. Experts say there is a greater chance cases and deaths will be missed in such areas, where access to health care is a struggle even in normal circumstances.