India Covid: Kumbh Mela pilgrims turn into super-spreaders

By Geeta Pandey
BBC News, Delhi

May 10 2021?

When millions of devout Hindus gathered last month in the Himalayan town of Haridwar?to participate in the?Kumbh Mela festival?even as India battled a devastating second wave of coronavirus, many feared that it would turn out to be a "super-spreader event".

Devout??adj. /d??va?t/ (人) 篤信宗教的；虔誠的?? a devout Christian/Muslim 虔誠的基督徒╱穆斯林

Haridwar?亦寫作Hardwar 赫爾德瓦爾（印度地名）?

Kumbh Mela??n. /?k?m ?me?l?/ 無遮大會，昆布梅樂節(jié)，大壺節(jié)（每十二年舉行的印度教節(jié)日，分別在圣城安拉阿巴德、赫爾德瓦爾、納西克、或?yàn)踬Z因的河岸舉行）

Those fears, it now seems, are coming true, with reports of Kumbh returnees testing positive - and possibly spreading the infection - coming from many parts of the country。

When Mahant Shankar Das arrived in Haridwar on 15 March to participate in the festival, cases of Covid-19 were already rising in many parts of India.

On 4 April, just four days after the festival officially began, the 80-year-old Hindu priest tested positive for Covid-19 and was advised to quarantine in a tent.

But instead of isolating, he packed his bags, boarded a train and travelled 1,000km (621 miles) to the city of Varanasi.

Varanasi 英 /v?'rɑ:n?si/ n. 瓦拉納西（印度東北部城市名）

There, his son Nagendra Pathak met him at the railway station and they rode a shared taxi to their village 20km (12 miles) away in the adjoining district of Mirzapur.

Mirzapur/'m?:z?pu?/ 印度北方城市米爾扎布爾

Speaking to me on the phone from his home recently, Mahant Das said he was "now hale and hearty" and that after his return, he had remained at home in quarantine.

Hale??adj. ?/he?l/ ????HALE AND ?HEARTY：(尤指老年人) ?健壯的；硬朗的

He insisted that he did not pass on the virus to anyone else, but within days, his son and a few other villagers also developed Covid symptoms.

Mr Pathak, who's also made a full recovery, says their village has seen "13 deaths in the past fortnight from fever and cough".

The infections in the villagers may - or may not - be linked to Mahant Das, but health experts say his behaviour was irresponsible and that by travelling in a crowded train and sharing a taxi, he may have spread the virus to many along the way.

Epidemiologist Dr Lalit Kant says "huge groups of mask-less pilgrims sitting on the?river bank?singing the glories of the Ganges" created an ideal environment for the virus to spread rapidly. "We already know that chorus singing in churches and temples are known to be super-spreader events."

?river bank：河畔，河堤

ganges /'ɡ?nd?i:z/ n. 恒河（位于亞洲，發(fā)源于喜馬拉雅山， 流經(jīng)印度和孟加拉）

In Haridwar, officials said 2,642 devotees had tested positive, including dozens of top religious leaders.

Akhilesh Yadav, former chief minister of neighbouring Uttar Pradesh state, and?Nepal's former King Gyanendra Shah?and former Queen Komal Shah, were among those who tested positive after returning home.?Bollywood composer Shravan Rathod died?in a Mumbai hospital soon after his return from Kumbh. Nine Hindu seers from one group also perished.

devotee ?n. /?dev??ti?/ 1.（狂熱的）崇拜者，愛好者??a devotee of science fiction 科幻小說的狂熱愛好者2.虔誠的宗教信徒??devotees of Krishna （印度教）黑天的虔誠信徒

Uttar Pradesh：北方邦（印度北部的邦，舊稱 United Provinces）

seer ?n. /s??(r)/ （尤指舊時(shí)）預(yù)言家，先知

Perish??v. /?per??/??1.(人或動(dòng)物) 死亡；暴死?A family of four perished in the fire. 一家四口死于此次火災(zāi)之中。2.喪失；湮滅；毀滅?早期建筑物為木質(zhì)結(jié)構(gòu)，已經(jīng)消失殆盡。3.（使橡膠等）老化，脆裂4. ?PERISH THE ?THOUGHT（用于拒絕一項(xiàng)建議或希望某事永不發(fā)生）沒門兒，甭想了，下輩子吧??Me get married? Perish the thought! 我結(jié)婚？下輩子再說吧！

With growing fears that the Kumbh returnees could start to infect others, several worried state governments ordered a 14-day mandatory quarantine and warned of strict action against those who withheld information about their travels.

Some made the RT-PCR test mandatory for them, but few states have a database of travellers and no state has a foolproof system of testing and tracing those entering its borders.

mandatory ?adj. /?m?nd?t?ri/ ?/m?n?de?t?ri/ ~ (for sb) (to do sth) 強(qiáng)制的；法定的；義務(wù)的?? It is mandatory for blood banks to test all donated blood for the virus. 血庫必須檢查所有捐獻(xiàn)的血是否含有這種病毒。

withhold ??v. /w?e?h??ld/ ?/w?θ?h?/ ( withheld-?withheld /??held/ ?)~ sth (from sb/sth) ?拒絕給；不給?? She was accused of withholding information from the police. 她被指控對警方知情不報(bào)。

RT PCR test 多聚梅反應(yīng)測試（核酸檢測），網(wǎng)上查不到具體的含義，但從文章中推測有可能是Right-Time PCR，即時(shí)核酸檢測

foolproof system /?fu?lpru?f ?s?st?m/ 萬全辦法

In the past fortnight, reports of Kumbh returnees testing positive have come from all over India:

• ?Authorities in Rajasthan blame the pilgrims?for the rapid spread of Covid cases in the state, especially in rural areas

• At least?24 Kumbh visitors tested positive?on return to the eastern state of Odisha (formerly Orissa)

• ?In Gujarat, at least?34 of a total of 313 passengers returning by one train were positive

• And 60 of the 61 - or?99% - returnees tested in a town in central Madhya Pradesh state were found to be infected. Officials are now?frantically?looking for 22 others who are missing。

rajasthan /,ra:d??'sta:n/ ?全球(印度) n. 拉賈斯坦邦（印度邦名）

odisha n. 奧里薩邦（印度東部的一個(gè)邦）

gujarat 英 /,ɡu:d?e'rɑ:t/ n. 古吉拉特邦（印度西部的邦）

madhya pradesh中央邦（印度中部的一個(gè)邦）

"It's disastrous," says Dr Kant. "And these numbers are only the tip of the iceberg. The groups of pilgrims travelling in crowded trains and buses would have the multiplier effect on the number of infections. I can say without hesitation that the Kumbh Mela is one of the main reasons behind the rise in cases in India."

Mahant Das is combative?when I ask him if it would have been better to cancel the Kumbh at a time India was recording huge surges in daily cases and hospitals were turning away patients due to a shortage of beds, medical oxygen and life-saving drugs.

"How is it right for the government to hold election rallies and elections in West Bengal?then? Why is it that only we, the devout, are being told that it was wrong to gather?" he asks.

combative ?adj. /?k?mb?t?v/ 好戰(zhàn)的；好斗的；好爭論的 ?in a combative mood/spirit 斗志昂揚(yáng)；銳氣旺盛

West Bengal：西孟加拉邦

Critics say Prime Minister Narendra Modi's?reluctance to cancel the gathering was because of possible backlash from Hindu religious leaders like Mahant Das. The priests, the seers and the?ascetics?are among the party's biggest supporters and play an important role in mobilising Hindu votes during elections.

reluctance 英 /r??l?kt?ns/ n. [電磁] 磁阻；勉強(qiáng)；不情愿

Backlash??n. /?b?kl??/ ~ (against sth)~ (from sb) （對社會變動(dòng)等的）強(qiáng)烈抵制，集體反對? The government is facing an angry backlash from voters over the new tax. 政府正面臨選民對新稅項(xiàng)的強(qiáng)烈反對。?

ascetic ?adj. /??set?k/過清苦生活的；（尤指）苦行的；禁欲的??The monks lived a very ascetic life. 僧侶過著很清苦的生活。

On 12 April, the first big day of the festival - when more than three million devotees took a dip in?the river Ganges in the belief that bathing there would help them attain salvation -?India logged more than 168,000 new cases,?overtaking Brazil to become the country with the second-highest number of cases globally.

The festival was scaled down only a week later after the lead monk of one of the participating groups died. Mr Modi requested the seers to turn the festival from then on into a symbolic event.

But the damage had already been done.

dip in：浸泡

Last week, the event organisers said 9.1 million pilgrims visited Haridwar even as the Uttarakhand high court said the state had become a?"laughing stock by allowing the Kumbh Mela?in the midst of a raging pandemic".

There had been concerns from the start that holding the Kumbh was fraught with risks.

Health experts had warned the government?in early March that "a new and more contagious variant of the coronavirus was taking hold in the country" and letting millions of largely unmasked people gather for a festival was not prudent.

uttarakhand 北阿坎德邦（印度地區(qū)）

fraught adj. ??/fr??t/ ?

1.~ with sth 充滿（不愉快事物）的??a situation fraught with danger/difficulty/problems 充滿危險(xiǎn)╱困難重重╱問題成堆的局面

2.焦慮的；憂慮的；擔(dān)心的??She looked/sounded fraught. 她愁容滿面；她的話音顯出憂慮。

Uttarakhand's former chief minister, Trivendra Singh Rawat, told me that he had planned the Kumbh to be a "limited, symbolic event" from the start because experts were "telling me that the pandemic is not going to end soon".

"The festival attracts people from not just India, but other countries too. I was worried that healthy people would visit Haridwar and take the infection back with them everywhere. "

But just days before the festival, he was replaced by Tirath Singh Rawat, who famously remarked that with "the blessings of Ma Ganga [Ganges, the river goddess] in the flow, there would be no corona".

The new chief minister said "nobody will be stopped", a negative Covid report was not necessary to attend, and that it would be enough to follow safety rules. But as millions descended on the town, officials struggled to impose safety norms.

norm ?n. /n??m/??1.常態(tài)；正常行為?a departure from the norm 一反常態(tài)；2.規(guī)范；行為標(biāo)準(zhǔn)?social/cultural norms 社會╱文化規(guī)范；3.標(biāo)準(zhǔn)；定額；定量?detailed education norms for children of particular ages 針對具體年齡兒童的詳細(xì)教育標(biāo)準(zhǔn)

Haridwar's chief medical officer, Dr Shambhu Kumar Jha, told me that crowd management became "very difficult" because people didn't come with negative reports and that they "couldn't turn back the devout who had come all the way driven by faith".

"You can't hang people for wanting to attend a religious festival, can you?" he asked.

"There were standard operating procedures (SOPs) by the federal government and the high court and we tried our best to implement them," he added.

"With crowds of that size, SOPs became almost impossible to follow. They look very good on paper, but it's impossible to implement them," Anoop Nautiyal, founder of an Uttarakhand-based think tank, told the BBC.

Mr Nautiyal, who has been collating the health ministry data since the state recorded its first case on 15 March 2020, says Uttarakhand had recorded 557 cases in the week from 14 to 20 March, just as pilgrims had begun arriving. The cases rose rapidly after that, with 38,581 cases recorded between 25 April and 1 May - the last week of the festival.

"It will be wrong to say all the cases were because of the festival, but the surge has coincided with the festival," he said.

I asked Dr Kant if there's anything India could do now to contain the damage done by allowing the gathering.

"Someone said that the devotees will take the coronavirus as prasad?[god's blessing] and spread it. It's tragic that the pilgrims have carried the infection everywhere," he said.

Prasad：印度教中神的惠贈(zèng)

"I can't think of anything that can be done now to rectify the situation. Our ship has gone too far out into the sea. We can't even return to the safety of the harbour. It's very, very tragic. I just pray that the infections were mild and people can get over them."

rectify ?v. /?rekt?fa?/ 矯正；糾正；改正? to rectify a fault 改正缺點(diǎn)

?譯文

When millions of?devout?Hindus gathered last month in the Himalayan town of?Haridwar?to participate in the?Kumbh Mela festival?even as India battled a devastating second wave of coronavirus, many feared that it would turn out to be a "super-spreader event".

上個(gè)月，數(shù)以百萬計(jì)的虔誠印度教徒聚集在赫爾德瓦爾的喜馬拉雅小鎮(zhèn)參加大壺節(jié)，即使當(dāng)時(shí)印度正在迎戰(zhàn)第二波毀滅性的新冠疫情。許多人擔(dān)心這會變成一次“超級傳播事件”。

Those fears, it now seems, are coming true, with reports of Kumbh returnees testing positive - and possibly spreading the infection - coming from many parts of the country。

伴隨著一篇篇關(guān)于全國各地參加大壺節(jié)的返鄉(xiāng)者（很有可能成為新的傳染源）檢測出陽性的報(bào)道，這些擔(dān)憂，以目前來看，變成了事實(shí)。

When Mahant Shankar Das arrived in Haridwar on 15 March to participate in the festival, cases of Covid-19 were already rising in many parts of India.

On 4 April, just four days after the festival officially began, the 80-year-old Hindu priest tested positive for Covid-19 and was advised to quarantine in a tent.

在3月15號，Mahant Shankar Das去赫爾德瓦爾參加大壺節(jié)的時(shí)候，印度各地的新冠確診人數(shù)已經(jīng)加速增加。在節(jié)日僅僅結(jié)束的4天之后，也就是4月4號，官方報(bào)道這位80歲的印度教徒檢測新冠陽性，被要求在帳篷里隔離。

But instead of isolating, he packed his bags, boarded a train and travelled 1,000km (621 miles) to the city of?Varanasi.

他無視隔離，收拾了行李，登上火車，跨越1000公里（621英里），來到了印度東北的城市瓦拉納西。

There, his son Nagendra Pathak met him at the railway station and they rode a shared taxi to their village 20km (12 miles) away in the adjoining district of?Mirzapur.

在這，他兒子Nagendra Pathak來火車站接他，并與其他人共同坐一輛的士前往他居住的村莊（距離20公里/12英里），該村莊與米爾扎布爾城市行政區(qū)相連。

Speaking to me on the phone from his home recently, Mahant Das said he was "now?hale?and?hearty" and that after his return, he had remained at home in quarantine.

最近，他電話告訴我自己“現(xiàn)在很健壯”，并表示回到家后，他在家隔離過。

He insisted that he did not pass on the virus to anyone else, but within days, his son and a few other villagers also developed Covid symptoms.

Mahant Das堅(jiān)持自己沒有傳染給他人。但幾天內(nèi)，他的兒子和一些村民表現(xiàn)出新冠的癥狀。

Mr Pathak, who's also made a full recovery, says their village has seen "13 deaths in the past fortnight from fever and cough".

已經(jīng)康復(fù)的Pathak（老人的兒子）說道，過去14天，村里已經(jīng)有13人死于發(fā)燒和咳嗽。

The infections in the villagers may - or may not - be linked to Mahant Das, but health experts say his behaviour was irresponsible and that by travelling in a crowded train and sharing a taxi, he may have spread the virus to many along the way.

該村村民的感染有可能與?Mahant Das有關(guān)系，也有可能沒有。但醫(yī)療專家批評老人的行為不負(fù)責(zé)任，并且搭乘擁擠的火車和與他人同乘的士可能已經(jīng)造成沿路乘客感染新冠病毒。

Epidemiologist Dr Lalit Kant says "huge groups of mask-less pilgrims sitting on the?river bank?singing the glories of the Ganges" created an ideal environment for the virus to spread rapidly. "We already know that chorus singing in churches and temples are known to be super-spreader events."

流行病學(xué)家Lalit Kant博士說道，“成群結(jié)隊(duì)的教徒?jīng)]有戴口罩，坐在河畔，歌頌著恒河”為新冠迅速傳播創(chuàng)造了絕佳的環(huán)境?！拔覀円呀?jīng)熟知教會和寺廟的唱詩班合唱一般會導(dǎo)致超級傳播事件”

In Haridwar, officials said 2,642 devotees had tested positive, including dozens of top religious leaders.

Akhilesh Yadav, former chief minister of neighbouring Uttar Pradesh state, and?Nepal's former King Gyanendra Shah?and former Queen Komal Shah, were among those who tested positive after returning home.?Bollywood composer Shravan Rathod died?in a Mumbai hospital soon after his return from Kumbh. Nine Hindu seers from one group also perished.

在赫爾德瓦爾，官方已經(jīng)通報(bào)2642名信徒確診新冠，包括許多宗教界領(lǐng)袖。

其中就有Akhilesh Yadav，前任鄰邦北方邦的首席部長、尼泊爾前國王?Gyanendra Shah和前皇后Komal Shah歸家之后確診。寶萊塢作曲家Shravan Rathod大壺節(jié)歸來之后不久死在孟買醫(yī)院。九位同一團(tuán)體的印度教先知也湮滅于此次新冠。

With growing fears that the Kumbh returnees could start to infect others, several worried state governments ordered a 14-day mandatory quarantine and warned of strict action against those who withheld information about their travels.

Some made the RT-PCR test mandatory for them, but few states have a database of travellers and no state has a foolproof system of testing and tracing those entering its borders.

伴隨著社會對大壺節(jié)歸來者可能會感染他人所帶來日益增長的恐懼，一些邦政府憂心忡忡，要求大壺節(jié)參加人士強(qiáng)制隔離14天，并且對隱瞞旅行史人士采取嚴(yán)格的管控措施。有些強(qiáng)制要求大壺節(jié)參加者要進(jìn)行即時(shí)的核酸檢測，但是行政邦基本沒有有旅行者的信息數(shù)據(jù)庫、明確沒有核酸檢測和追蹤入境人員的簡單系統(tǒng)。

In the past fortnight, reports of Kumbh returnees testing positive have come from all over India:

• ?Authorities in Rajasthan blame the pilgrims?for the rapid spread of Covid cases in the state, especially in rural areas

• At least?24 Kumbh visitors tested positive?on return to the eastern state of Odisha (formerly Orissa)

• In Gujarat, at least?34 of a total of 313 passengers returning by one train were positive

• And 60 of the 61 - or?99% - returnees tested in a town in central Madhya Pradesh state were found to be infected. Officials are now?frantically?looking for 22 others who are missing。

在過去的14天，印度各地不斷報(bào)道大壺節(jié)返鄉(xiāng)信徒確診新冠：

• 拉賈斯坦邦當(dāng)局譴責(zé)朝圣信徒導(dǎo)致了疫情在本地區(qū)的快速蔓延，尤其是鄉(xiāng)村地區(qū)

• ?至少24為大壺節(jié)參加者在返回東部奧利薩邦中檢測出新冠陽性

• 在古吉拉特邦，一火車返鄉(xiāng)313名乘客中至少34名呈新冠陽性

• 中央邦一小鎮(zhèn)61位大壺節(jié)返鄉(xiāng)者確診60人，確診率99%。官方正在發(fā)瘋的尋找失蹤的22名確診患者

"It's disastrous," says Dr Kant. "And these numbers are only the tip of the iceberg. The groups of pilgrims travelling in crowded trains and buses would have the multiplier effect on the number of infections. I can say without hesitation that the Kumbh Mela is one of the main reasons behind the rise in cases in India."

“這真是災(zāi)難！”Kant博士說道，“而這只是冰山一角。信徒們搭乘擁擠的火車和公交會對感染人數(shù)產(chǎn)生數(shù)乘效應(yīng)。我可以毫不猶豫地表態(tài)：大壺節(jié)是印度新冠確診病例上升的關(guān)鍵原因之一。”

Mahant Das is?combative?when I ask him if it would have been better to cancel the Kumbh at a time India was recording huge surges in daily cases and hospitals were turning away patients due to a shortage of beds, medical oxygen and life-saving drugs.

"How is it right for the government to hold election rallies and elections in?West Bengal?then? Why is it that only we, the devout, are being told that it was wrong to gather?" he asks.

當(dāng)我問Mahant Das?如果大壺節(jié)那時(shí)候取消了，現(xiàn)在情況是不是會好一些？而現(xiàn)在每日確診激增，醫(yī)院由于缺少床位、醫(yī)療氧氣和救命的醫(yī)藥物資而不得不拒絕病患。Mahant Das怒氣沖沖，問道，“你是怎么看待政府舉辦的選舉集會和在西孟加拉舉辦的選舉？為什么只有我們，這些信徒！被告知不能集會？”

Critics say Prime Minister Narendra Modi's?reluctance?to cancel the gathering was because of possible?backlash?from Hindu religious leaders like Mahant Das. The priests, the seers and the?ascetics?are among the party's biggest supporters and play an important role in mobilising Hindu votes during elections.

批判者表示莫迪之所以不愿意取消集會很有可能是擔(dān)心印度教宗教領(lǐng)袖的強(qiáng)烈抵制，例如Mahant Das。這些信徒、先知還有宗教苦修者是莫迪所在黨派的最大票倉，在選舉中動(dòng)員印度教徒投票扮演著重要的角色。

On 12 April, the first big day of the festival - when more than three million devotees took a?dip in?the river Ganges in the belief that bathing there would help them attain salvation -?India logged more than 168,000 new cases,?overtaking Brazil to become the country with the second-highest number of cases globally.

The festival was scaled down only a week later after the lead monk of one of the participating groups died. Mr Modi requested the seers to turn the festival from then on into a symbolic event.

But the damage had already been done.

4月12日，大壺節(jié)最重要的一天——3百多萬信徒浸泡在恒河里，相信恒河的水能夠救贖他們——這天印度確診了168000名患者，取代巴西成為全球第二大疫情國。該節(jié)日在其中一個(gè)參加團(tuán)隊(duì)的主持僧侶死亡一周之后規(guī)?？s小。莫迪要求先知們將這個(gè)節(jié)日變成一個(gè)象征性的活動(dòng)。

但是損失已經(jīng)造成。

Last week, the event organisers said 9.1 million pilgrims visited Haridwar even as the Uttarakhand high court said the state had become a?"laughing stock by allowing the Kumbh Mela?in the midst of a raging pandemic".

There had been concerns from the start that holding the Kumbh was fraught with risks.

Health experts had warned the government?in early March that "a new and more contagious variant of the coronavirus was taking hold in the country" and letting millions of largely unmasked people gather for a festival was not prudent.

上周，該活動(dòng)的舉辦人表示有910萬教徒參加赫爾德瓦爾大壺節(jié)，然而，北阿坎德邦高等法庭表示，在疫情迅速擴(kuò)張之際，赫爾德瓦爾由于允許舉辦大壺節(jié)已經(jīng)淪為笑柄。關(guān)于舉辦大壺節(jié)充滿風(fēng)險(xiǎn)這點(diǎn)，從始至終都有擔(dān)憂。在三月初，醫(yī)療專家就警告政府，“一種感染性強(qiáng)的新冠變種正在席卷全國”、“讓數(shù)以百萬計(jì)的人不戴口罩聚集慶祝節(jié)日是不嚴(yán)謹(jǐn)?shù)摹薄?/span>

Uttarakhand's former chief minister, Trivendra Singh Rawat, told me that he had planned the Kumbh to be a "limited, symbolic event" from the start because experts were "telling me that the pandemic is not going to end soon".

"The festival attracts people from not just India, but other countries too. I was worried that healthy people would visit Haridwar and take the infection back with them everywhere. "

Trivendra Singh Rawat，前北阿坎德邦首席部長告訴我，他曾經(jīng)打算從開始將大壺節(jié)舉辦成一次“有限制，象征性的活動(dòng)”，因?yàn)閷＜腋嬖V他“疫情不會很快結(jié)束”?！斑@個(gè)節(jié)日不僅會吸引來自印度的人，還有其他國家的人。我以前就很擔(dān)心健康的人來到赫爾德瓦爾感染然后把病毒帶到各地?！?/span>

But just days before the festival, he was replaced by?Tirath Singh Rawat, who famously remarked that with "the blessings of Ma Ganga [Ganges, the river goddess] in the flow, there would be no corona".

但僅在節(jié)日之前，他的職位被Tirath Singh Rawat取代，而Tirath這個(gè)人說過非常有名的話：恒河的祝福和水中的恒河女神會帶走新冠病毒。

The new chief minister said "nobody will be stopped", a negative Covid report was not necessary to attend, and that it would be enough to follow safety rules. But as millions descended on the town, officials struggled to impose safety norms.

這位新任首席部長說道：“誰也不能阻擋朝圣者”，參加也不強(qiáng)制要求新冠陰性報(bào)告，而這個(gè)足以遵守安全規(guī)則（這句話UP不是很確定）。但隨著數(shù)百萬人涌入該鎮(zhèn)，官員們難以實(shí)施安全規(guī)范。

Haridwar's chief medical officer, Dr Shambhu Kumar Jha, told me that crowd management became "very difficult" because people didn't come with negative reports and that they "couldn't turn back the devout who had come all the way driven by faith".

"You can't hang people for wanting to attend a religious festival, can you?" he asked.

赫爾德瓦爾首席醫(yī)療官Dr Shambhu Kumar Jha告訴記者，由于人們并沒有攜帶新冠陰性報(bào)告，而官方不忍心趕走這群遠(yuǎn)道而來的虔誠信徒，所以管理人群非常困難。

“你總不能因?yàn)橐粋€(gè)人想?yún)⒓幼诮坦?jié)日就絞死他吧?”他問道。

"There were standard operating procedures (SOPs) by the federal government and the high court and we tried our best to implement them," he added.

"With crowds of that size, SOPs became almost impossible to follow. They look very good on paper, but it's impossible to implement them," Anoop Nautiyal, founder of an Uttarakhand-based think tank, told the BBC.

Mr Nautiyal, who has been collating the health ministry data since the state recorded its first case on 15 March 2020, says Uttarakhand had recorded 557 cases in the week from 14 to 20 March, just as pilgrims had begun arriving. The cases rose rapidly after that, with 38,581 cases recorded between 25 April and 1 May - the last week of the festival.

?北阿坎德邦一智庫創(chuàng)始人Anoop Nautiyal對BBC表示，“聯(lián)邦政府出臺過標(biāo)準(zhǔn)執(zhí)行流程（SOPs），高等法庭和我們也盡力實(shí)施這個(gè)標(biāo)準(zhǔn)流程。但這等規(guī)模的人群，標(biāo)準(zhǔn)流程已經(jīng)完全不適用。完全是紙上談兵?！盢autiyal先生從2020年3月15號，該邦出現(xiàn)第一例病例時(shí)候就開始收集衛(wèi)生部數(shù)據(jù)。他表示北阿坎德邦今年3月14-20日一共出現(xiàn)557例病例，這正是朝圣者開始入境該邦的時(shí)候。接著，案例迅速增加，在4月25-5月1日，一共確診38581名，正是大壺節(jié)最后一周。

"It will be wrong to say all the cases were because of the festival, but the surge has coincided with the festival," he said.

他說道：“所有病例都是因?yàn)榇髩毓?jié)而造成的這種說法是錯(cuò)誤的，但是確診病例的激增是與節(jié)日軌跡一致?！?/span>

I asked Dr Kant if there's anything India could do now to contain the damage done by allowing the gathering.

我問Kant先生，印度現(xiàn)在能做些什么來控制這次集會所造成的損害。

"Someone said that the devotees will take the coronavirus as?prasad?[god's blessing] and spread it. It's tragic that the pilgrims have carried the infection everywhere," he said.

“有人說，信眾會把冠狀病毒當(dāng)作神的祝福來傳播。這些朝圣者到處攜帶著這種病毒，這太可悲了?！?/span>

"I can't think of anything that can be done now to rectify the situation. Our ship has gone too far out into the sea. We can't even return to the safety of the harbour. It's very, very tragic. I just pray that the infections were mild and people can get over them."

“我想不出現(xiàn)在能做什么來改變這種情況。我們的船在海上駛得太遠(yuǎn)了。我們甚至不能回到安全的港口。這是非常非常悲慘的。我只祈禱感染是輕微的，人們能克服它們?！?/span>

原文鏈接：https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-57005563