HARIDWAR, India (Reuters) – Hundreds of thousands of asbestos-stained ascetics and devout Hindus dived during a religious festival in the Ganges on Wednesday in hopes of washing away their sins as India reported a new record of coronavirus infections.
While large crowds were on their way to the river on a special bathing day during the week-long “Kumbh Mela” festival, the health authorities had to withdraw a test crew of COVID-19.
“We have taken away our sampling team to avoid a rush situation,” said SK Jha, chief medical officer of the northern city of Haridwar, where the event is being held.
“Of course we expect things to increase when the priests and other crowds leave.”
Police said 650,000 devotees have been bathing in the river since Wednesday morning and that people are being fined for not taking social distance in some areas.
Infections in the city have jumped more than 500 a day since Kumbh Mela, or the pitcher festival, officially started this month, from just 25-30 last month, Jha said. Hotels have become isolation shelters for those infected by a team of 300 medical staff who perform 40,000 randomized tests daily.
India’s new COVID-19 cases reached a record 184,372 in the last 24 hours, more than double the figure at the beginning of the month.
However, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has refused to eliminate the festival, which would last all month, possibly for fear of a setback of religious leaders in the land of the Hindu majority.
“It is already a super-distributor because there is no room to test hundreds of thousands in a crowded city and the government does not have the facilities or the manpower,” said a senior official in Uttarakhand, where Haridwar is located. .
Pious Hindus believe that bathing in the holy Ganges relieves people of sin, and during the Kumbh Mela it brings salvation from the cycle of life and death.
A short distance from the river, Hotel Sachin International transformed itself into a COVID isolation center. All 72 rooms were filled with more than 150 patients, a hotel manager said.
“We started recording patients on April 5, and three days ago all our rooms were filled,” the employee said, not wanting to be identified due to a verbal instruction from local authorities.
The hotel did not respond to a request for comment. A doctor from the region said at least four other hotels had been converted into COVID wards.
“What you see is not Kumbh Mela, but it is a corona atomic bomb,” tweeted Indian filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma, along with a picture of a sea of fans. “I wonder who will be held responsible for this viral explosion.”
Reporting by Anushree Fadnavis and Neha Arora; Additional reporting by Saurabh Sharma; Edited by Krishna N. Das and Giles Elgood