Kumbh mela baths and holy dips with poor central governance majorly caused coronavirus spread in India.

 India is recording high single-day coronavirus spikes of more than 400000 per day. This is the highest in the world. There were some unavoidable reasons for this rise but most of this 'super-spread' has taken place due to an ignorant, unscientific, and fanatically religious government at the center. At a time, when they should have listened to their experts in the field, they did not. They even sidelined the scientific data and continued to beat their own trumpet. The end result of this foolish act is clear. 

French-Belgian border moved! Who did it? 

Professor Ashish Jha and what he says 

Dr. Ashish Jha is a reputed academician and an expert on global health with world renown. He is the Dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health. 

He said that the Holy dips and baths (snans as they are called in local language) of Kumbh Mela that were held in March and April 2021 in Haridwar, Uttarakhand, India led to rise in coronavirus cases in the state and in India. It was a fertile ground for spreading the virus and people who came took it back with them to other countries such as Nepal and China. And what is worse is that these viral strains that people took back with them to their own countries were not mere coronavirus original strain but a highly mutated form of it. The virus mutant has multiplied in India and given rise to double and triple mutants that are more faster to transmit, and causing a severe disease and death in young adults specifically. This is more dangerous.

Though there seems to be some plateauing now, the plateau level is very high above 3.5 lakh. Dr. Ashish also added that the actual figures could be 15-20 lakes per day since many cases are going undetected or dying without testing. Testing is not done enough and widely for the cases to be picked up. 

Dr. Ashish Jha was on the TV show The Wire with Karan Thapar. 

Kumbh Mela holy dips and baths 

The religious gathering is held every 8 years in the city of Haridwar in the state of uttarakhand in India. Here Hindu people and sages attend in large numbers. This year, 2-3 million people gathered at this place. They were without face masks and followed no social distancing. The government allowed them to have such a huge gathering in the midst of the covid pandemic. Additionally, they did not enforce any of the coronavirus prevention measures. The local and central government were mute spectators to the whole super spreader event. This is an unpardonable act to be condemned and liable for punishment. 

On the show, Dr. Ashish said that the people need to have an explanation on this misgovernance from those in power. The central government owes an explanation and apology to the people on this matter. Will they justify or apologize?  Nay they did not do it when people died standing in queues after the futile Demonetization. They also did not do it after their wrong policies such as GST and CAA. 

Who is Karan Thapar? 

It may be recalled that Karan Thapar is a famous journalist and news show anchor who had conducted the aborted interview of Modi when he was a CM of Gujarat. In this interview, Modi failed to give proper answers and walked out even before the interview really began. See the whole interview here: