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. /dɪˈvaʊt/ (人) 笃信宗教的；虔诚的 • a devout Christian/Muslim 虔诚的基督徒╱穆斯林

Haridwar 亦写作Hardwar 赫尔德瓦尔（印度地名） 

Kumbh Mela  n. /ˌkʊm ˈmeɪlə/ 无遮大会，昆布梅乐节，大壶节（每十二年举行的印度教节日，分别在圣城安拉阿巴德、赫尔德瓦尔、纳西克、或乌贾因的河岸举行）

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 /və'rɑ:nəsi/ n. 瓦拉纳西（印度东北部城市名）

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/'mə:zəpuə/ 印度北方城市米尔扎布尔

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.  /heɪl/  ˌ  HALE AND ˈHEARTY：(尤指老年人)  健壮的；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 /'ɡændʒi:z/ n. 恒河（位于亚洲，发源于喜马拉雅山， 流经印度和孟加拉）

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. /ˌdevəˈtiː/ 1.（狂热的）崇拜者，爱好者 •a devotee of science fiction 科幻小说的狂热爱好者2.虔诚的宗教信徒 •devotees of Krishna （印度教）黑天的虔诚信徒

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

seer  n. /sɪə(r)/ （尤指旧时）预言家，先知

Perish  v. /ˈperɪʃ/  1.(人或动物) 死亡；暴死•A family of four perished in the fire. 一家四口死于此次火灾之中。2.丧失；湮灭；毁灭•早期建筑物为木质结构，已经消失殆尽。3.（使橡胶等）老化，脆裂4. ˌPERISH THE ˈTHOUGHT（用于拒绝一项建议或希望某事永不发生）没门儿，甭想了，下辈子吧 •Me get married? Perish the thought! 我结婚？下辈子再说吧！

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. /ˈmændətəri/  /mænˈdeɪtəri/ ~ (for sb) (to do sth) 强制的；法定的；义务的 • It is mandatory for blood banks to test all donated blood for the virus. 血库必须检查所有捐献的血是否含有这种病毒。

withhold   v. /wɪðˈhəʊld/  /wɪθˈh‑/ ( withheld- withheld /‑ˈheld/  )~ sth (from sb/sth)  拒绝给；不给 • She was accused of withholding information from the police. 她被指控对警方知情不报。

RT PCR test 多聚梅反应测试（核酸检测），网上查不到具体的含义，但从文章中推测有可能是Right-Time PCR，即时核酸检测

foolproof system /ˈfuːlpruːf ˈsɪstəm/ 万全办法

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:dʒə'sta:n/  全球(印度) n. 拉贾斯坦邦（印度邦名）

odisha n. 奥里萨邦（印度东部的一个邦）

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

madhya pradesh中央邦（印度中部的一个邦）

"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. /ˈkɒmbətɪv/ 好战的；好斗的；好争论的 •in a combative mood/spirit 斗志昂扬；锐气旺盛

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 /rɪˈlʌktəns/ n. [电磁] 磁阻；勉强；不情愿

Backlash  n. /ˈbæklæʃ/ ~ (against sth)~ (from sb) （对社会变动等的）强烈抵制，集体反对• The government is facing an angry backlash from voters over the new tax. 政府正面临选民对新税项的强烈反对。 

ascetic  adj. /əˈsetɪk/过清苦生活的；（尤指）苦行的；禁欲的 •The monks lived a very ascetic life. 僧侣过着很清苦的生活。

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（印度地区）

fraught adj.   /frɔːt/  

1.~ with sth 充满（不愉快事物）的 •a situation fraught with danger/difficulty/problems 充满危险╱困难重重╱问题成堆的局面

2.焦虑的；忧虑的；担心的 •She looked/sounded fraught. 她愁容满面；她的话音显出忧虑。

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. /nɔːm/  1.常态；正常行为•a departure from the norm 一反常态；2.规范；行为标准•social/cultural norms 社会╱文化规范；3.标准；定额；定量•detailed education norms for children of particular ages 针对具体年龄儿童的详细教育标准

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：印度教中神的惠赠

"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. /ˈrektɪfaɪ/ 矫正；纠正；改正• to rectify a fault 改正缺点

 译文

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".

上个月，数以百万计的虔诚印度教徒聚集在赫尔德瓦尔的喜马拉雅小镇参加大壶节，即使当时印度正在迎战第二波毁灭性的新冠疫情。许多人担心这会变成一次“超级传播事件”。

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。

伴随着一篇篇关于全国各地参加大壶节的返乡者（很有可能成为新的传染源）检测出阳性的报道，这些担忧，以目前来看，变成了事实。

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号，Mahant Shankar Das去赫尔德瓦尔参加大壶节的时候，印度各地的新冠确诊人数已经加速增加。在节日仅仅结束的4天之后，也就是4月4号，官方报道这位80岁的印度教徒检测新冠阳性，被要求在帐篷里隔离。

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

他无视隔离，收拾了行李，登上火车，跨越1000公里（621英里），来到了印度东北的城市瓦拉纳西。

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.

在这，他儿子Nagendra Pathak来火车站接他，并与其他人共同坐一辆的士前往他居住的村庄（距离20公里/12英里），该村庄与米尔扎布尔城市行政区相连。

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，他电话告诉我自己“现在很健壮”，并表示回到家后，他在家隔离过。

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坚持自己没有传染给他人。但几天内，他的儿子和一些村民表现出新冠的症状。

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

已经康复的Pathak（老人的儿子）说道，过去14天，村里已经有13人死于发烧和咳嗽。

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.

该村村民的感染有可能与 Mahant Das有关系，也有可能没有。但医疗专家批评老人的行为不负责任，并且搭乘拥挤的火车和与他人同乘的士可能已经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."

流行病学家Lalit Kant博士说道，“成群结队的教徒没有戴口罩，坐在河畔，歌颂着恒河”为新冠迅速传播创造了绝佳的环境。“我们已经熟知教会和寺庙的唱诗班合唱一般会导致超级传播事件”

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.

在赫尔德瓦尔，官方已经通报2642名信徒确诊新冠，包括许多宗教界领袖。

其中就有Akhilesh Yadav，前任邻邦北方邦的首席部长、尼泊尔前国王 Gyanendra Shah和前皇后Komal Shah归家之后确诊。宝莱坞作曲家Shravan Rathod大壶节归来之后不久死在孟买医院。九位同一团体的印度教先知也湮灭于此次新冠。

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.

伴随着社会对大壶节归来者可能会感染他人所带来日益增长的恐惧，一些邦政府忧心忡忡，要求大壶节参加人士强制隔离14天，并且对隐瞒旅行史人士采取严格的管控措施。有些强制要求大壶节参加者要进行即时的核酸检测，但是行政邦基本没有有旅行者的信息数据库、明确没有核酸检测和追踪入境人员的简单系统。

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。

在过去的14天，印度各地不断报道大壶节返乡信徒确诊新冠：

• 拉贾斯坦邦当局谴责朝圣信徒导致了疫情在本地区的快速蔓延，尤其是乡村地区

•  至少24为大壶节参加者在返回东部奥利萨邦中检测出新冠阳性

• 在古吉拉特邦，一火车返乡313名乘客中至少34名呈新冠阳性

• 中央邦一小镇61位大壶节返乡者确诊60人，确诊率99%。官方正在发疯的寻找失踪的22名确诊患者

"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."

“这真是灾难！”Kant博士说道，“而这只是冰山一角。信徒们搭乘拥挤的火车和公交会对感染人数产生数乘效应。我可以毫不犹豫地表态：大壶节是印度新冠确诊病例上升的关键原因之一。”

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.

当我问Mahant Das 如果大壶节那时候取消了，现在情况是不是会好一些？而现在每日确诊激增，医院由于缺少床位、医疗氧气和救命的医药物资而不得不拒绝病患。Mahant Das怒气冲冲，问道，“你是怎么看待政府举办的选举集会和在西孟加拉举办的选举？为什么只有我们，这些信徒！被告知不能集会？”

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会很有可能是担心印度教宗教领袖的强烈抵制，例如Mahant Das。这些信徒、先知还有宗教苦修者是莫迪所在党派的最大票仓，在选举中动员印度教徒投票扮演着重要的角色。

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，大壶节最重要的一天——3百多万信徒浸泡在恒河里，相信恒河的水能够救赎他们——这天印度确诊了168000名患者，取代巴西成为全球第二大疫情国。该节日在其中一个参加团队的主持僧侣死亡一周之后规模缩小。莫迪要求先知们将这个节日变成一个象征性的活动。

但是损失已经造成。

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，该活动的举办人表示有910万教徒参加赫尔德瓦尔大壶节，然而，北阿坎德邦高等法庭表示，在疫情迅速扩张之际，赫尔德瓦尔由于允许举办大壶节已经沦为笑柄。关于举办大壶节充满风险这点，从始至终都有担忧。在三月初，医疗专家就警告政府，“一种感染性强的新冠变种正在席卷全国”、“让数以百万计的人不戴口罩聚集庆祝节日是不严谨的”。

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长告诉我，他曾经打算从开始将大壶节举办成一次“有限制，象征性的活动”，因为专家告诉他“疫情不会很快结束”。“这个节日不仅会吸引来自印度的人，还有其他国家的人。我以前就很担心健康的人来到赫尔德瓦尔感染然后把病毒带到各地。”

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".

但仅在节日之前，他的职位被Tirath Singh Rawat取代，而Tirath这个人说过非常有名的话：恒河的祝福和水中的恒河女神会带走新冠病毒。

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.

这位新任首席部长说道：“谁也不能阻挡朝圣者”，参加也不强制要求新冠阴性报告，而这个足以遵守安全规则（这句话UP不是很确定）。但随着数百万人涌入该镇，官员们难以实施安全规范。

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.

赫尔德瓦尔首席医疗官Dr Shambhu Kumar Jha告诉记者，由于人们并没有携带新冠阴性报告，而官方不忍心赶走这群远道而来的虔诚信徒，所以管理人群非常困难。

“你总不能因为一个人想参加宗教节日就绞死他吧?”他问道。

"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.

 北阿坎德邦一智库创始人Anoop Nautiyal对BBC表示，“联邦政府出台过标准执行流程（SOPs），高等法庭和我们也尽力实施这个标准流程。但这等规模的人群，标准流程已经完全不适用。完全是纸上谈兵。”Nautiyal先生从2020年3月15号，该邦出现第一例病例时候就开始收集卫生部数据。他表示北阿坎德邦今年3月14-20日一共出现557例病例，这正是朝圣者开始入境该邦的时候。接着，案例迅速增加，在4月25-5月1日，一共确诊38581名，正是大壶节最后一周。

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

他说道：“所有病例都是因为大壶节而造成的这种说法是错误的，但是确诊病例的激增是与节日轨迹一致。”

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

我问Kant先生，印度现在能做些什么来控制这次集会所造成的损害。

"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.

“有人说，信众会把冠状病毒当作神的祝福来传播。这些朝圣者到处携带着这种病毒，这太可悲了。”

"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."

“我想不出现在能做什么来改变这种情况。我们的船在海上驶得太远了。我们甚至不能回到安全的港口。这是非常非常悲惨的。我只祈祷感染是轻微的，人们能克服它们。”

原文链接：https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-57005563