Up to one million Hindu pilgrims are expected to gather for a festival at the mouth of the River Ganges this week despite warnings from public health experts that the event could amplify Covid infections
, officials in the Indian state of West Bengal estimate that up to a million people will attend the Gangasagar Mela, an annual weeklong festival ending Sunday in which pilgrims typically immerse themselves in the Ganges.
Public health experts say such measures are inadequate, or impossible to implement, and that gatherings like this, which attract enormous crowds of tightly packed devotees, are the perfect setting for mass infections. During last year’s devastating spring wave of the Delta variant, millions of maskless people flocked to one spot on the Ganges for a similar festival called Kumbh Mela.
Dr. Avinandan Mondal, a physician in the West Bengal capital of Kolkata, said he was so convinced of the dangers of this week’s festival that he filed a plea earlier this month at the Calcutta High Court requesting a ban this year. Authorities can do virtually nothing to stop the coronavirus from spreading, he said, when huge volumes of people from all over the country gather in one venue.
State officials defended their plans, including setting up booths to carry out rapid antigen tests, conducting thermal screening and handing out masks at the venue. People who test positive are also being taken to government-run quarantine facilities, one official said.
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