India detected a record 362,757 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday, and a high of 3,285 deaths, as the country reeled under the force of a ferocious second wave that has overwhelmed its healthcare system.

The latest deaths pushed India’s official number of fatalities from the pandemic to more than 201,000 people, though experts believe the true toll is significantly higher.

In recent weeks, many stricken Indians have struggled to secure Covid-19 tests from overstretched medical laboratories, some of which have also scaled back testing. 

Ailing patients who have died without confirmed tests results are not being counted as Covid-19 deaths in official records.

The true number of infections is also thought to be far higher, with some epidemiologists estimating the likely number of new infections at around 1m a day.

However, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata party has sought to quash debates about the magnitude of India’s true casualty numbers, amid growing anger over the government’s handling of the pandemic.

“Those who died will never come back,” senior BJP leader Manohar Lal Khattar, chief minister of the state of Haryana, said on Tuesday. “There is no point debating if the number of deaths is actually more or less.”

Meanwhile, Australia has become the latest country to ban flights from India amid concern that arriving passengers could carry in the virus to a country that has successfully controlled the pandemic.