NEW DELHI: The number of coronavirus cases in India continued to rapidly increase Wednesday, with officials reporting nearly 10,000 new cases over the past 24 hours.

The spike has come as the government moves forward with reopening restaurants, shopping malls and religious places in most of its states after a more than two-month-old lockdown.

The government has already partially restored train services and domestic flights and allowed shops and manufacturing to reopen. Subways, hotels and schools and colleges, however, remain shuttered nationwide.

The Health Ministry on Wednesday reported an 24-hour increase of 9,985 cases and 274 deaths. India has recorded 276,583 positive cases, the fifth highest in the world, and 7,745 deaths.

The actual numbers, like elsewhere in the world, are thought to be fair higher due to a number of reasons such as limited testing.

More than 4.9 million tests have been conducted in the country of 1.3 billion people, with daily testing crossing 140,000 people.

Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and New Delhi are the worst-hit states with 90,787, 34,914 and 31,309 positive cases respectively.