The religious holiday in India that mobilized 25 million people in the middle of the second wave

NEW DELHI.- The Hindu religious festival Kumbh Mela, celebrated since January in northern India, has attracted 25 million people, including 4.6 million in two days this week., local authorities reported on Friday in full second wave of coronavirus in the Asian country.

India has recorded more than 217,000 infections in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of new cases to two million since April 1.

“We have recorded 2,000 positive cases since Monday during random tests on Kumbh pilgrims,” ​​said Harbeer Singh, senior director of the festival which takes place in Haridwar, capital of the state of Uttarakhand.

“We are taking precautions and encouraging people to adopt preventive behaviors against the coronavirus”added. According to the official, the tests were increased in the 600 hectares of the fair. He insisted that government protocols, including the requirement for mandatory negative certificates, were strictly enforced.

Despite official recommendations, huge crowds of pilgrims that they will wash away their sins in the Ganges, sacred river, they seem to ignore the danger.

Earlier in the week, Mahamandaleshwar Kapil Dev Das, 65, head of one of 13 akhadas, Hindu ascetic councils, was admitted to hospital where he died on Thursday from coronavirus, authorities said. Some 80 sadús, Hindu ascetics considered to be saints, have tested positive for the coronavirus, they said.

This gigantic congregation has long triggered warnings from medical professionals, who believe that the a mass event could spread a “super epidemic“While pilgrims returning to their places of origin could spread the virus to towns and villages in India.

More than 25,000 pilgrims continue to arrive every day in the city where 2 to 3 million Hindu believers are expected for their last deep bath on April 27, before the end of the festival.

The state government of Uttarakhand has not enforced current restrictions that limit congregations to 200 people at the festival. Chief Minister of State Tirath Singh Rawat said in early April that no faithful would be “needlessly harassed in the name of covid-19 restrictions”.

Then he was infected with the virus, which has so far killed 175,000 people in India and infected 14.3 million, the second highest in the world after the United States.

Agencia AFP

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