BELGRADE, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Serbian health authorities confirmed on Sunday another 467 cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, which is the highest daily number since the beginning of the outbreak in March.

Despite mandatory wearing of face masks both indoors and outdoors, as well as a ban on gatherings, Serbia continued to record an increase in the daily number of new cases.

In the past 24 hours, there were 10,381 tests, of which 467 were confirmed positive, while another eight people died as a result of the infection, the Health Ministry confirmed.

Since the beginning of the outbreak in early March, 621,714 people were tested in Serbia. A total of 23,730 people were diagnosed with COVID-19, and 534 had died from the disease.

Currently, there are 4,568 people hospitalized across Serbia, of whom 169 are on respiratory ventilators.

Serbia declared a COVID-19 state of emergency in mid-March and imposed curfews to prevent the spread of the virus. It lifted those restriction measures on May 6. But the number of new cases has been increasing rapidly since late June.