Manali Flooded With Tourists Despite 3rd Wave Concerns
People have thronged Manali and other hill towns even as concerns over a third wave of COVID-19 are growing. Watch our latest video to learn more.
Each year, north Indians tend to flock to hill stations in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand during peak summer. However, this year when the country went through the world's worst coronavirus outbreak, you would have thought people will be afraid to travel and will stay home for safety. Sadly that's not the case. As news channels and experts talk about the 3rd wave of the coronavirus, people have thronged Manali and other hill towns. People shared pictures of heavily crowded streets in the city as tourists were seen blatantly ignoring social distancing norms. Similar crowds were also seen in Shimla, Kufri, Narkanda, Dalhousie, and Lahaul.
In fact most of the hotels are fully occupied. This is happening because the Himachal Pradesh government no longer requires visitors to carry a negative RT-PCR report or e-COVID pass to enter the state.
The images of crowded manali has made many people tense and many shared funny social media memes about it. The State Bank of India (SBI) has an organization called SBI Research. They published a report that says the 3rd wave of the coronavirus will arrive by September 2021. The 3rd wave will be much worse than the 2nd. Depending on how the situation is controlled now, the 3rd wave can be stopped.
