Kumbh Mela raising the spectre of Covid superspreaders

Kumbh Mela is celebrated four times over a course of 12 years and spans four river-bank pilgrimage sites, namely Prayagraj, Haridwar, Ujjain and Nashik. The annual Kumbh Mela festival usually attracts millions of devout Hindus over three months, but this time the Uttarakhand government has decided to limit the Kumbh this year to 30 days due to pandemic. This year, Kumbh Mela will start on April 1 and 150 million visitors are expected to congregate in Haridwar this time.

There is a reason authorities world over are clamping down on gatherings and imposing lockdowns to contain the spread of Covid. Expectedly a huge jump in Covid infections is expected following the Kumbh Mela. Already, up to 40 pilgrims and locals were testing positive every day at the festival in Haridwar. "This positivity rate has the potential to rapidly turning to an upsurge in cases, given the expected large footfall during Kumbh," the Union Health Ministry recently warned.

Recently, the Uttarakhand govt warned pilgrims to abide by Covid rules and maintain social distancing and use masks. However, virus fears have not stopped large crowds of pilgrims from attending the gathering. Very few are also using masks and are not maintaining social distancing, according to news reports.

Some 50,000 rapid antigen tests and 5,000 RT-PCR tests are being carried out every day at the festival. However, the Centre has warned that they are not enough to effectively offset the huge number of expected pilgrim footfall. The state has been advised that the share of RTPCR tests being conducted at present needs to be significantly increased as per the ICMR guidelines to ensure that the pilgrims and local population are appropriately tested.

India has recently seen an upsurge in the number of Covid cases. India recorded 47,262 fresh coronavirus cases in a day, the highest single-day rise so far this year, the Union Health Ministry said on March 24. Though we are still far from the peak of almost 100,000 in September 2020, the numbers are still much higher than 9,000 odd cases in early this February.