Indians are crowding markets and taking packed flights to holiday destinations again, despite calls from authorities urging restraint and caution amid rising cases of the rapidly-spreading Omicron variant of the coronavirus.
In the coastal State of Goa, hotels are running at nearly 90 per cent occupancy, with some 90 flights landing daily, pushing air traffic volumes back to pre-pandemic levels.
“For a year, people haven’t celebrated anything. This year, we have holiday-makers as well as people celebrating their milestone birthdays and weddings. In terms of occupancy, we are back to pre-Covid levels,” Nilesh Shah, who heads a top travel body in the State, said.
Shah estimated that more than a million tourists had entered Goa in December alone as Covid-related restrictions eased in most of India and coronavirus cases hit a year-and-a-half low.
But Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has warned States not to let their guard down.
Trouble ahead?
“There are festivals, there is the New Year and we are seeing that there could be trouble because of that,” Vinod Kumar Paul, a senior government official who advises Modi on the pandemic, told a news conference on Friday.
The same day, Orissa had announced fresh restrictions, banning all social gatherings till January 2 and limiting the number of people allowed into a church for Christmas. This follows similar curbs announced by the capital territory of New Delhi this week.
Also read: Centre pushes 11 States to step up vaccination; no national curbs
On Thursday, a court urged Modi’s government to suspend political rallies in States facing elections due to the rise in Omicron infections.
Elections to the State Assembly in Uttar Pradesh, home to over 220 million people, are scheduled for early 2022 but final dates are yet to be announced. Three other States are also scheduled to hold local elections at the same time.
In all, India has recorded 34.8 million Covid cases and nearly 4,80,000 deaths during the pandemic so far.
Modi’s government has raced to inoculate all of the country’s 944 million adults and has given at least one dose to 88 per cent of those.