Wednesday, 14 April 2021 | Gajendra Singh Negi | Dehradun
In the last seven days 2,476 cases of the disease have been reported from Haridwar district alone
The fear of experts that the Kumbh in Haridwar could give a spike in the cases of the disease in the district and adjoining areas appears to be coming true. The data of the state health department shows that in the last seven days 2,476 cases of the disease have been reported from Haridwar district alone.
The data clearly shows that the number of cases of the disease in Haridwar have increased with the advent of Kumbh. On March 31, a day before the Kumbh started the state health department reported only 70 cases of the disease. This figure bounced to 149 on April 1 when Kumbh started. The increase in the number of cases in the district is also linked to an increase in testing of the pilgrims visiting Kumbh on the borders. On April 7, the authorities reported 308 new cases and took 18534 samples; similarly 227 and 229 cases were reported on April 8 and 9 respectively. The patient count in Haridwar increased to 254 on April 10 when 14217 samples were collected and jumped to 386 on April 11, a day before the second Shahi Snan. On the day of Shahi Snan on April 12, the authorities collected 28585 samples for RT-PCR tests and reported 408 cases of the disease. On Tuesday, a day after the second Shahi Snan and a day before the third Shahi Snan, 594 new patients of the disease were reported in Haridwar.
It is pertinent to mention here that apart from other directives to control the spread of the disease during Kumbh, the Uttarakhand High Court (HC) had directed the administration to test 50,000 pilgrims daily in Kumbh. However the data of the department shows that from April 1 to 11, the state health department had done an average of 17529 tests a day which is much less than the target of 50000 tests per day set up by the Uttarakhand HC.
The founder of Social Development for Communities (SDC) foundation, Anoop Nautiyal said that the department data shows that only 33 percent tests of the 50,000 tests mandated by the HC are being done. He accepted that it is very difficult to enforce the social distancing norms during a mega event like Kumbh.
