HARIDWAR, India (Reuters) – Hundreds of thousands of ash-stained ascetics and devout Hindus crowded into the Ganges during a religious festival on Wednesday, hoping to wash away their sins, as India reported a new record increase in coronavirus infections.
While huge crowds headed to the river on a special bathing day during the week-long “Kumbh Mela” festival, health authorities had to withdraw a COVID-19 test crew.
“We’ve taken our monster team away to avoid a stampede-like situation,” said SK Jha, chief medical officer of the northern city of Haridwar, where the event is being held.
“Of course we expect cases to arise when the priests and other people leave.”
Police said 650,000 devotees had bathed in the river since Wednesday morning and people were fined for not paying attention to social aloofness in some areas.
Infections in the city have already risen to 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 insulating shelters for people infected by a team of 300 medical personnel who perform 40,000 random tests daily.
The new COVID-19 cases in India hit a record high of 184,372 in the last 24 hours, more than double the number at the start of the month.
However, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has refused to call off the festival, which will run for the entire month, possibly out of fear of backlash from Hindu-majority religious leaders in the country.
“It is already a super spreader because there is no room to test hundreds of thousands in a crowded city and the government has neither the facilities nor the manpower,” said a senior official in the state of Uttarakhand, where Haridwar is located.
Devout Hindus believe that bathing in the holy Ganges releases people from 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 had converted itself into a COVID isolation center. All 72 rooms were filled with more than 150 patients, a hotel director said.
“We started admitting patients on April 5, and three days ago all our rooms became full,” said the employee, who refused to be identified due to a gag order from local authorities.
The hotel did not respond to an email asking for comment. A doctor from the region said at least four other hotels have been turned into COVID wards.
“What you see is not Kumbh Mela, but it is a corona atomic bomb,” tweeted Indian filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma, alongside a photo of a sea of devotees. “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