India will lock down its capital New Delhi for a week from Monday night to try and control a raging coronavirus outbreak.

Infections are skyrocketing in India, however, with hospitals running out of beds and the government forced to reimpose economically painful restrictions again.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said the capital’s “health system is at a tipping point”.

“If we don’t impose a lockdown now, we will be looking at a bigger disaster. The government will take full care of you. We took this tough decision taking the situation into consideration,” Arvind Kejriwal said.

“The six-day lockdown will help us arrange more beds and supplies.”

Mr Kejriwal said ICU beds were almost over and oxygen levels were critically low in the city. He shared that one private hospital had run out of oxygen at 3 am on Saturday, which could have turned into a disaster.

“We are not trying to scare you…I won’t say the health system has collapsed but it is really stressed. There are limits to any system,” said the Chief Minister.

Grocers, shops selling food and medicine and newspaper sellers will function. Banks, ATMs, insurance offices will operate. Home deliveries and takeaways will also be allowed.

The Delhi lockdown came after the vast nation of 1.3 billion people reported a record high of 273,810 infections on Monday — the fifth consecutive day of more than 200,000 cases.