Janmashtami 2020 image: ISKCON temple at Vrindavan sealed after 22 people tested COVID-19 positive
The ISKCON temple at Vrindavan has been sealed after 22 people, including the priest tested positive for COVID-19 infection on Tuesday, according to news agency ANI. "Movement of people has been restricted and the temple sealed," said an official. ISKCON is celebrating Krishna Janmashtami tomorrow.
In view of the coronavirus pandemic, the ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) temple in Delhi will not allow devotees on Janmashtami. "This year the grandeur is less due to COVID-19. Entry will be purely based on limited invitation. We request all devotees to stay with us virtually on this auspicious day," Vrajendra Nandan Das, Vice President of ISKCON, New Delhi was quoted by ANI as saying.
Those invited will have to pass through a sanitizer tunnel before entering the main temple and temperature will also be checked with thermal guns. The authorities have decided not to serve food inside the temple and packed food will be given to devotees invited.
In Bengaluru too, ISKCON will host a virtual darshan and people can watch Krishna Janmashtami celebrations online. There will be a 40-hour webcast ''Swagatam Krishna'' on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook a statement from ISKCON said.
At other Krishna temples in Mathura and Vrindavan, including the famous Banke Behari Mandir, devotees are not being allowed this year. Rituals and puja are going on according to the muhurat but celebrations are low-key.
A fresh surge of 53,601 new coronavirus patients in the last 24 hours has taken India's Covid tally to 22,68,675 cases, the Union Health Ministry said this morning. This is the seventh consecutive day that India, which has the third highest caseload in the world, has reported more cases in a day than the United States and Brazil, which have logged more patients than the country since the beginning of the pandemic. About 15.8 lakh Covid patients have recovered in India, the government data shows, and the recovery rate stood at 69.79 per cent this morning.
Five states - Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh - reported the highest number of cases and deaths in the last 24 hours.