COVID tragedy unfolding in India as Ganges festival continues

India’s new coronavirus infections hit a record high on Wednesday, as crowds of pilgrims gathered for a religious festival despite oxygen shortages and strict curbs in other areas.

The country reported 184,372 new cases in the last 24 hours, health ministry data showed, taking total infections to 13.9 million. Deaths rose by 1,027, to a total of 172,085.

Despite the spike in infections, hundreds of thousands of devout Hindus gathered to bathe in the Ganges river on Wednesday, the third key day of the weeks-long Kumbh Mela – or pitcher festival.

Reuters quoted Sanjay Gunjyal, the inspector general of police at the festival, as having said around 650,000 people had bathed on Wednesday morning.

“People are being fined for not following social distancing in non-crowded ghats (bathing areas), but it is very hard to fine people in the main ghats, which are very crowded,” he said.

There was little evidence of social distancing or mask-wearing, according to a Reuters witness.

More than one thousand cases have been reported in Haridwar district in the last two days, according to government data.

From reporting less than 10,000 cases per day earlier this year, India has been the world’s worst-hit country since April 2 by new daily cases, with the government blaming a widespread failure to heed curbs on movement and social interaction.

Reuters reported that India’s richest state Maharashtra, the epicentre of the nation’s second wave, which accounts for about a quarter of the country’s cases, is due to impose stringent restrictions from Wednesday to try to contain the spread.

Elsewhere, overstretched private hospitals are turning patients away, placing an increasing burden on government facilities.

In the western state of Gujurat, local media showed a long queue of ambulances waiting outside Ahmedabad Civil Hospital, with some patients being treated there while they waited.

A hospital source, who declined to be named as he is not authorised to speak publicly, said this was because a lot of private hospitals were short of oxygen and were sending their patients to the public hospital, Reuters reported.

This comes after cases have risen exponentially over the past week.

According to Gulf News, patients are also being given oxygen in waiting rooms, lobby areas in hospitals were being converted into COVID wards, doctors in the country’s top hospital were sick en masse and the gas furnace grills at crematoriums were melting with bodies piling up at cremation centres.

Gulf News also reported that this comes amid relentless outrage and questioning – from citizens and the Congress – for the government to fast track approvals for foreign made vaccines.

According to Gulf News, unlike last year, there is real fear among Indians today who claim the country is in complete meltdown.

The complacency that ‘it doesn’t happen to us’ has finally been pricked – although not at the Ganges festival.

Reports indicate that Bollywood has virtually shut down, judges have the virus, the variants are more critical than what the country realises and the people are staring at lockdowns amid frantic pleas for help.