A patient breathes with the help of oxygen provided by a Sikh place of worship, inside a car in New Delhi, India, on Sunday. India's medical oxygen shortage has become so dire that the place of worship began offering free breathing sessions with shared tanks to COVID-19 patients waiting for a hospital bed.

NEW DELHI —With life-saving oxygen in short supply, family members in India are left on their own to ferry coronavirus patients from hospital to hospital in search of treatment as the country is engulfed in a devastating new surge of infections.

Too often their efforts end in mourning. The stories are told on social media and in television footage, showing desperate relatives pleading for oxygen outside hospitals or weeping in the street for loved ones who died waiting for treatment.

The 349,691 confirmed infections over the past day brought India's total to more than 16.9 million cases, behind only the United States. The Health Ministry on Sunday reported another 2,767 deaths in the past 24 hours, pushing India's fatalities to 192,311.