One million will fill the Indian Ganges despite holy immersion in COVID | Coronavirus pandemic News

Nearly one million Hindu worshipers are expected to gather on the banks of the river for a pilgrimage to the state every year, reporting the second largest number of cases.

Nearly one million Hindu worshipers are expected to gather on the banks of the Ganges River for a holy bath this Friday and Saturday. Rise of COVID-19 infections Across the country, an official told Reuters.

India reported 168,063 new COVID-19 infections on Tuesday, despite a 20-fold increase in tests in a month.

Most of the infected people have been cured at home and the level of hospitalization has been less than half that seen in the last wave of infections in April and May.

Many states have announced night limits, while the capital of New Delhi has also imposed a weekend blockade, closing private offices and restaurants and bars in an effort to sustain rapid expansion. Omikron variant.

But hundreds of thousands of pilgrims have already arrived at the site of the Ganges ritual on an island in the eastern state of West Bengal, which receives the most cases in the country after the western state of Maharashtra.

“Crowds can grow anywhere from 800,000 to a million people. We are trying to implement all the COVID protocols,” West Bengal Minister Bankim Chandra Hazra, who is in charge of organizing the festival known as Gangasagar Mela, told Reuters.

” [Hindu holy men] they are bent. We can’t stop them. ‘

A a similar major religious festival It helped spread the Delta variant that infected millions of people and killed tens of thousands in northern India last year.

Every year on the 14th of January, the important day of the Hindu Makar Sankranti, pilgrims go to the village of Gangasagar to dive, where the Ganges and the Bay of Bengal meet.

Doctors have appealed to the state Supreme Court this year to overturn the decision to allow the festival, worrying about whether the virus will become a “super spreader” event.

India has reported a total of 35.88 million COVID-19 infections, the highest number in the world after the United States. The death toll rose from 277 on Monday to 484,213.

India tested 1.6 million COVID-19s on Monday, with a capacity of more than two million. All the close contact of confirmed patients has eliminated the need for testing.