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India on Sunday registered 9,971 new coronavirus cases, taking its tally to 246,628 cases, with 6,929 deaths. The case numbers are now only behind the United States, Brazil, Russia, UK and Spain.

The capital New Delhi has registered more than 10 percent of the total cases, making it the third worst-affected part of the country after the western state of Maharashtra, home to financial capital Mumbai, and southern Tamil Nadu state.

Officials in New Delhi have also ordered many of its hospital beds to be reserved solely for residents of the Indian capital.

It follows complaints from some people on social media that people were being refused treatment.

Figures showed that 70 percent of patients admitted to hospitals in the capital were people traveling from other states to get treatment as the city’s hospitals are seen as the best in the country.

New Delhi state Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said in a video message on Twitter: “Delhi is in big trouble, corona cases are rising rapidly,”

“If we open Delhi hospitals for patients from all over, where will Delhi residents go when they get infected with coronavirus?”

Although cases are still rising, India is easing its lockdown rules as New Delhi and several other cities are due to open malls, restaurants and religious places with strict social distancing rules from today.

People visiting places of worship will also be asked to wash their hands and feet, and there will be no distribution of food offerings, sprinkling of holy water or touching of idols and holy books.

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Concerts, sporting events and political rallies will still be banned however.

The nationwide lockdown has hit businesses it has been claimed but Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government says it helped slow the spread of the virus.

However, Indian experts are worried it is too soon to lift India’s lockdown.

Giridhar Babu, epidemiologist at the Public Health Foundation of India, in particular questioned the re-opening of religious places.

He said on Twitter: “We can survive and sustain the gains without … opening up religious places for sometime.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday that India’s lockdown had helped it dampen down transmission of the disease but stressed there was a risk the number of cases could rise again.

Dr Mike Ryan, head of WHO’s emergencies programme, told a news conference in Geneva: “As India and in other large countries open up and people begin to move there is always a risk of the disease bouncing back up.”

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