Crowds thick as ever as Covid-19 advisories fall on deaf ears in Kolkata

In Burrabazar, jostling crowds are a disaster waiting to happen

The public health advisories in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak seem to have fallen on deaf ears in Burrabazar, one of Kolkata’s largest wholesale markets. Here, the crowds are as thick as ever, street vendors are as numerous and raucous as ever, and but for a few harried home guards and civic volunteers, no one seems to be perturbed that a deadly, highly contagious virus is going around, infecting and killing people by the thousands.

Though streets and commercial establishments in the rest of Kolkata were relatively empty on Friday, in Burrabazar in central Kolkata, which houses nearly 1,000