COVID-19 Infections Soar 20-fold, One Million Residents Are Predicted To Fill The Ganges River For Sacred Rituals This Weekend

Illustration of ritual bathing in the Ganges River at Makar Sankranti in India. (Wikimedia Commons/Biswarup Ganguly)

JAKARTA - Nearly a million Hindus are expected to gather on the banks of the Ganges this Friday and Saturday for a holy bath, despite COVID-19 infections across the country, an official said on Tuesday.

India reported 168.063 new COVID-19 infections on Tuesday, a 20-fold increase in the past month.

Most of the infected have recovered at home and the hospitalization rate is less than half, compared to that seen during the last big wave of infections in April and May.

Many states have declared curfews, while the capital Delhi has also imposed a weekend lockdown, closing private offices as well as restaurants and bars in a bid to contain the fast-spreading variant of Omicron.

However, tens of thousands of pilgrims have reached the site of the annual Ganga ritual on an island in the eastern state of West Bengal, which has reported the highest number of cases in the country after the western state of Maharashtra.

"Crowds can swell anywhere between 800.000 to a million. We are trying to implement all COVID protocols," Bankim Chandra Hazra, a West Bengal minister in charge of organizing the festival known as Gangasagar Mela, told Reuters, as quoted on January 12.

"We have also arranged holy water splashes from drones so there are no crowds, but the sadhus (Hindu holy men) are determined to swim. We can't stop them," he continued.

Illustration of ritual bathing in the Ganges River at Makar Sankranti in India. (Wikimedia Commons/Biswarup Ganguly)

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

The Calcutta High Court, responding to a plea from doctors who feared the festival could become a "super-spreader" event, ruled on Tuesday that all pilgrims should be tested for COVID-19.

It was not immediately clear how many pilgrims could be tested over the next few days or whether the decision would be upheld.

Doctors have appealed to the court to overturn the decision to allow this year's festival. Bhramar Mukherjee, professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan, said the meeting could be "catastrophic".

Every year on January 14, on the important Hindu day of Makar Sankranti, pilgrims visit Gangasagar Village to swim at the confluence of the Ganges River and Bay of Bengal. They believed doing so blotted out their sins and those of their fathers.

To note, India has reported a total of 35.88 million COVID-19 infections, the largest tally in the world after the United States. Deaths rose by 277 to 484.213 on Monday.

India carried out 1.6 million COVID-19 tests on Monday, while its capacity is more than 2 million. This has eliminated the need for all close contacts of confirmed patients to be tested.