After India enforced a nationwide lockdown due to the novel Coronavirus Pandemic, one of the police officers has found a creative way to spread the message among the citizens of Chennai.
Rajesh Babu, a police inspector who works in the Southern City of Chennai, was seen with a specially constructed coronavirus helmet while stopping vehicles and pedestrians at checkpoints.
Despite the lockdown, people are still coming out in numbers which is why local artist B. Gowtham has to come with an innovative approach to share the message from PM Modi to its citizens.
The helmet is covered in red spiker with bulbs on the end, just like the microscopic image of the coronavirus, which causes the disease Covid-19.
Local artist B. Gowtham, founder of the Chennai-based organization the Art Kingdom, came up with the idea of helmet after noticing a lack of public awareness around the pandemic and preventative measures.
On 24th March, the government of India under Prime Minister, Narendra Modi ordered a nationwide lockdown for 21 days, limiting movement of the entire 1.3 billion population of India as a preventive measure towards the 2929 coronavirus pandemic in India.
“People are not hygienic enough… We have government orders not to come out — but still, we’re seeing people roaming here and there without proper safety equipment, without masks. ,” Gowtham said.
Gowtham said that the idea behind the Coronavirus helmet was simple as he thought people are not taking it seriously because it seemed invisible, so he decided to create something thereby they could see the virus coming towards them. “People will be frightened,” he later added.
Gowtham went to his nearest police station. “They’ve been working continuously, so I wanted to reduce their workload and make people more aware,” he said. After getting the support he started with his creative idea.
With the lockdown in the country, every store was closed, so he improvised, using newspapers and tissue paper to create the helmet and its spikes — then gave it to police inspector Rajesh Babu, who loved the idea.
Wearing the helmet, Rajesh Babu stops people in cars or motorcycles, especially when he sees them not wearing face masks. He tells them about the necessity of social distancing and protective personal equipment and urges them not to go outside for nonessential reasons.
Dressed as the coronavirus, he would say: “If you come out, I will come in.”
The helmet has been well received, Gowtham said, with a number of commuters thanking Babu for the information and agreeing to stay home.
India has recorded 1,071 cases of the coronavirus and 29 deaths and a total of 100 recovered, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
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