This time, the surge of Covid-19 virus outbreak is in India and it is due tabligh gathering in New Delhi. It is now labelled as the biggest domestic source of the disease in the country. Doesn’t this sound very familiar? Infographic source: Hindustan Times
It is the same pattern that is emerging from the tabligh gathering in Malaysia. And Indonesia would have similar nightmare had they allowed the tabligh gathering in Sulawesi Island to continue. Thankfully although they were insisting to proceed initially, the organisers and the participants saw the wisdom of cancelling the event especially after the surge of infections in Malaysia.
The tabligh gathering in Malaysia from Feb 27 to March 3 saw about 16,000 attendees, with 1,500 of them being foreigners from 25 different countries. Nearly two-third of the new infections that was confirmed coming from this tabligh cluster.
And there are more bad news related to this tabligh gathering in Malaysia which the Indian health authorities need to take note:-
The new clusters among the 150 Covid-19 cases confirmed positive today include fourth and fifth-generation clusters from the Sri Petaling tabligh gathering, said Health Ministry director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.
“The new clusters will be indirectly related to (the gathering), whether it is the fourth or fifth-generation…
(Source)
And there are still participants yet to be tested:-
The Ministry of Health (MOH) is still monitoring about 3,000 participants who had attended a Sri Petaling Jamek Mosque gathering.
Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said among the reasons why the 3,000 people had not been screened was that those who had gone abroad had not returned since attending the gathering.
Dr Noor Hisham said Selangor recorded a high number of cases and the sources were the tahfiz and madrasah (religious schools) some of whom had attended the tabligh gathering.
He said 50% of the cases were linked to the tabligh gathering, and now, it had spread to the religious schools.
(Source)
As many others, you too will feel pissed off with these people who despite the warnings related to the coronavirus infections, gathered together and caused a surge of new coronavirus infections. To make things worse, some of these participants went into hiding causing the major headache to the authorities. It is believed that there are still 3,000 participants from the Malaysian’s event still missing and not tested.
It is possible that they are missing from Malaysia to attend the gathering in India and may be may be linked with the surge in India:-
Malaysians are among many foreigners quarantined in India over Covid-19 suspicions and at least one has tested positive.
They came to India recently to participate in Islamic preaching and prayer events of the Tablighi Jamaat organisation.
Many were present at a large gathering, attended by both foreigners and Indians, at the Tabligh centre in New Delhi.
(Source)
India will be facing the same nightmare as Malaysia had in containing, testing and tracing these participants. In Malaysia, despite the respectable effort by the authorities, they have not gotten all the participants in for testing. There are still missing participants. By the way, have they managed to locate the missing 2,000 Rohinyas who also attended the gathering?
Related: Lock Down in Malaysia 2020: Day 9: Deterioration & Painful Extension
Of course given the size of population, the Indian authorities have to take a harsher stand:-
Indian authorities sealed off the headquarters of a Muslim missionary group on Tuesday and ordered an investigation into accusations it held religious meetings that officials fear may have infected dozens of people with the Covid-19 coronavirus.
One of the coronavirus hot spots that the government of the capital, New Delhi, has flagged is a Muslim quarter where the 100-year-old Tablighi Jamaat group is based, after dozens of people tested positive for the virus and at least seven died.
Authorities said people kept visiting the Tablighi centre, in a five-storey building in a neighbourhood of narrow, winding lanes, from other parts of the country, and it held prayer meetings, despite government orders on social distancing.
Hundreds of people were crammed into the group’s building until the weekend when authorities began taking them out for testing.
“It looks like social distancing and quarantine protocols were not practised here,” the city administration said in a statement.
“The administrators violated these conditions and several cases of corona positive patients have been found … By this gross act of negligence many lives have been endangered … this is nothing but a criminal act.”
(Source)
The number active cases in Malaysia continues to increase – we have yet to see any flattening of the active cases and we only have another 10 days to go for the 2nd stricter lock down to expire. The number of new cases still precedes the number of recovered cases. If the active numbers continue to increase, will we see the 3rd extension of the nationwide lock down? Graph source: Outbreak.my
As at Saturday, Malaysia reported a total cases of 3,483 positive infections with 57 deaths and 915 patients recovered whilst India reported a total cases of 3,082 positive infections with 86 deaths and 229 patients. Overall despite the higher number of cases, Malaysia is on a better path compared to India with fatality rate of 1.64% compared to India’s 2.79% and a recovery rate of 26.27% compared to India’s 7.43%.
One thing for sure, with the new infections from the religious gathering in New Delhi, the number of the infections and fatality rate in India will increase substantially in the coming days. Not to mention the level of cleanliness even in temples where it suppose to be clean & stress free.
Related: Outbreak 2020: New Coronavirus Infection, Devotees Stupidity and Cow Urine
Any religious gathering irrespective of whether it is a tabligh, church service or prayers at temple must be in a state of total lockdown. No religion todate has been proven to cure COVID-19 patients except than real science and medicine. The true heroes are front liners are battling this war on behalf of all of us and they are already overwhelmed in some countries. This battle front cannot afford to be defeated.
Related: Lock Down in Malaysia 2020: Day 4: Stupidity is Public Enemy No 1
Stupidity has always been the number 1 reason for the increase of the infected cases all around the world. We need to add the charge of gross act of negligence and criminal act into this mindless gathering that have endangered so many innocent people.