India passes 300,000 cases with single-day high

NEW DELHI — India reported more than 11,000 new coronavirus infections on Saturday, another single-day high for the country, as it passed the grim milestone of 300,000 cases.

The Health Ministry reported 11,458 new cases, driving the toll to 308,993, the fourth-highest in the world. It also reported 386 deaths, raising the number of fatalities to 8,884.

India’s caseload has jumped by about 100,000 in a week, coinciding with the reopening of shopping malls, houses of worship and restaurants. The government had imposed a nationwide lockdown in late March.

In New Delhi, the capital, most public hospitals are full, and crematoriums and graveyards are struggling to manage a rash of bodies.

New Delhi’s government has projected that cases in the capital area alone could expand to more than half a million by late July, and is considering taking over luxury hotels and stadiums to convert into field hospitals.

In other developments in the Asia-Pacific region:

The Chinese capital has locked down 11 residential communities near a wholesale food market to try to stem a new outbreak of COVID-19. Beijing officials said Saturday that 45 workers at the Xinfadi market tested positive for the coronavirus, though they showed no symptoms. That was in addition to seven earlier cases of people with symptoms, including six who had visited or worked at the market. Forty environmental samples taken at the market also tested positive, city officials said. The Beijing News newspaper said in a social media post that Communist Party members and volunteers were being organized to shop for food and other daily necessities for the affected residents. The city, which had not had a locally transmitted infection in more 50 days, reversed some recent moves to relax coronavirus restrictions.