India has reported a record of nearly 10,000 new coronavirus cases, with health services in the worst-hit cities of Mumbai, New Delhi and Chennai swamped by the rising infections.
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India's tally has reached 286,579 confirmed cases, the fifth highest in the world, with 8102 deaths, including 357 in the past 24 hours.
The spike comes as the government moved ahead with the reopening of restaurants, shopping centres and places of worship in most of India after a lockdown of more than two months. Subways, hotels and schools remain closed.
The actual infection numbers are thought to be higher because of limited testing.
The health ministry said it was ramping up the capacity with daily testing of more than 145,000 people. The number of tests in India crossed five million on Wednesday.
It also said the total number of recovered patients has exceeded the active cases for the first time, with the recovery rate of nearly 49 per cent.
In New Delhi, a sprawling capital region of 46 million, half the 8200 hospital beds dedicated to COVID-19 patients are already full and officials project more than half a million cases in the city alone by July 31.
"We are sitting on a ticking time bomb," said Dr Harjit Singh Bhatti, president of the Progressive Medicos and Scientists Forum.
"Unless and until the government increases its spending on healthcare, things won't change. A lot of people will die," he said. "But if some strong policy decisions are made not only in Delhi but across India, we can minimise the damage."
Private hospitals in Delhi - a wider territory that encompasses New Delhi - report that all their sickbeds and ventilators are in use. Severely ill people have been turned away from public hospitals, too.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has come under fire for imposing a 10-week nationwide lockdown that crippled the economy and triggered a humanitarian crisis as unemployed migrant workers fled for their ancestral villages on foot.
Government officials defended the measures as the cost of protecting India's 1.3 billion people from a devastating loss of life. In a national televised address, Modi said Indians' sacrifice had "saved the nation".
But in recent weeks, the government has eased lockdown restrictions, resulting in nearly 10,000 new infections a day.
Australian Associated Press