Corona and Isha Mahashivratri Celebrations — Deliberate malice churning?
Did the Isha Foundation’s celebrations that happened on 21st Feb, 2020 have anything to do with the spread of Corona Virus infections in India?
Let’s look all the facts in this regards to know whether this is true or yet another desperate attempt at mud-slinging.
Scientific Facts about Viral Spread
It is well known that the time for the Virus to express itself in a human body is upto 14 days.
Isha Mahashivratri celebrations had happened on 21st Feb 2020.
If there had indeed been a spread of infection during this festival, it should have come out by the 5th of March, 2020.
But the corona virus infection detections in India have all been foreign returned travellers, till at least the 3rd week of March, 2020.
Also, if there had indeed been an infection spread on 21st Feb, there should have been multiple infections reported at the Isha Yoga Center itself or among the celebrities who attended the fest.
But none of that has not happened till 30th of March 2020.
Anyway, the health officials had inspected the people residing at the Isha Yoga Center and found no signs of inspection.
So, obviously there had been no such infection spread either at the time of or thereafter from the Isha MahaShivratri fest.
No Chinese, Japanese, Singaporeans for the Fest
During the late 2nd week of February itself, Isha Foundation had cancelled all the registrations of people from China, Singapore and Japan from attending the Mahashivratri celebrations.
This is the registration form for the event which details the active steps being taken by the Isha Foundation.
And the emails that the registered participants received also show that the Foundation took adequate steps to inform everyone.
Even media reports covered that the Isha Foundation is restricting people from coming to the event from places which might have been affected by the viral infection.
So, the possibility of any infection spread from people of these regions where the Virus was restricted to at that time, would have been impossible.
Here is a heart touching video of a Chinese meditator (from Wuhan, the epicenter of virus outbreak) lamenting that she is not able to attend the Mahashivratri celebrations.
Medical Checks Even During Registration
Above all, the registration form for participating in Isha Mahashivratri celebrations had clear sections about medical conditions that people had to disclose. Every foreign national who attended the celebrations was subject to strict medical checks on arrival to the yoga center.
It is not just during such festive occassions, but every foreign national visiting the Isha Yoga Center is subjected to such checks any time of the year.
So, there is no truth in such baseless rumours, whatsoever.
I hope the Indian State and Central Governments will take strict actions against such rumour mongers.
Actually, the Isha Yoga Center is perhaps the safest place in Coimbatore right now. That is why Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev has offered the Yoga Center premises to the Tamilnadu Government for usage during these critical times in the fight against Corona Virus.
Isha Yoga Center offers premises to Tamil Nadu government in fight against Coronavirus Pandemic
Sadhguru, Founder, Isha Foundation, said that if needed, Isha volunteers will also provide support in government hospitals.
As soon as the public health advisory from the Central Government regarding COVID-19 came out, Isha Foundation has been subjecting all its residents and visitors as well to medical checks.
The Center, in a statement, said visitors “are being medically screened” before being allowed to enter and those living within the center “are being subjected to periodic screening.”
Sadhguru has also put off his immediate engagements, including an upcoming Inner Engineering programme in Mumbai and a visit to South Africa, scheduled in the first week of April.
Isha is also sending out guidelines based on the government travel advisory, to all those who plan to visit the Center. It has requested those who “have had any symptoms of COVID-19 in the last 28 days — including sore throat, cold, cough, fever, breathlessness, headache, runny nose, etc. — or have been in close contact with anyone having the above symptoms” to refrain from visiting.
In addition to making hand sanitizers available at all common points at the Center, Isha is also holding hygiene orientation programmes for everyone and promoting respiratory etiquette. The precautions also extend to housekeeping, security and other ground staff employed at Isha, the statement added.
Sadhguru himself has been working so much to appear on multiple social media platforms and mass media trying to spread peace and calm people during such troubling times.
Yet some people are deliberately spreading hoax stories trying to raise panic among people unnecessarily.
