The chief scientist for the World Health Organization described on Tuesday the situation in India as “very worrying” amid soaring infection rates and deaths, especially because many of the numbers probably are being undercounted. The rising numbers are of “great concern to us and we also recognize that these are underestimates,” Soumya Swaminathan told the Economic Times. “We need to do some exercises to try to find out what the missed numbers should be.”

India announced a slight decrease Tuesday in new cases from over the weekend with 329,942 infections — still by far the most in the world — and 3,876 deaths. While there are signs the surge may be abating in major metropolitan areas like Mumbai and Delhi, the new wave appears to be taking hold in more rural areas that are harder to monitor.

On Monday, officials in the state of Bihar found dozens of bodies dumped in the Ganges River; they are believed to be undiagnosed victims of covid-19.

Also on Monday, WHO designated the variant sweeping through much of India as a more dangerous “variant of concern” that is believed to be more transmissible as well as possibly more resistant to antibodies.

Here are some significant developments: